Spring cohort announced for Houston tech company's startup accelerator

ready to grow

Fourteen companies are joining the spring cohort of the Softeq Venture Studio. Photo courtesy of Softeq

A Houston tech company has announced the latest cohort of its accelerator program, bringing the total number of startups supported by the company to 63.

Softeq Development Corp., a technology services development company, named 14 new startups joining its three-month spring Softeq Venture Studio cohort.

“We are so proud of the success we have had with the Softeq Venture Studio, helping to support and secure funding for 63 startups to date through the Softeq Venture Fund," says Christopher A. Howard, founder and CEO of Softeq. "With 23 of 89 founders coming from outside of the U.S., we demonstrate Houston’s growing influence as a startup hub where entrepreneurs can find a welcoming innovation community, a strong talent base, and world-class research facilities."

The spring 2023 cohort for Softeq includes:

  • Houston-based AIM7, data intelligence platform that unlocks wearable and mHealth data to provide customized and predictive wellness solutions.
  • Avendly, based in Providence, Rhode Island, makes robotic automation for restaurants to help, not supplant humans. Its first of many products is Mixibot, an integrated back-bar cocktail vending system.
  • Founded in Austin, ClioVis, is meeting today’s content-creator students where they are and how they learn. The company provides unique experiential learning tools designed for today’s content-creator students who learn by doing, not lectures.
  • Based in Tel Aviv, Israel, Flometrica, is a digital health solution featuring "use anywhere" devices to remotely monitor and diagnose various urinary tract problems through analysis of different urine parameters.
  • Gophr, from Lake Charles, Louisiana, is a technology-driven logistics company that provides tailored and efficient delivery solutions for various industries, individuals, and businesses of all sizes.
  • Chicago-based KarChing puts cash in teens’ hands for safe driving. The only app built for parents, teens, and insurance companies that rewards drivers for phone- and distraction-free behavior behind the wheel.
  • Houston-founded Meander collects travel customer satisfaction micro-surveys as people go about their trips. The research platform rewards travelers for sharing their pics, videos, and insights.
  • MEedia, based in Sacramento, California, puts a professional press conference event in your pocket. Individuals can create broadcast-worthy interactive shareable content with just their phone.
  • MeterLeader, from Huntington Beach, California, gamifies saving energy in homes by using real-time utility data and behavioral science. We're like a Fitbit challenge for your home, but instead of steps we measure kWh, therm, and CO2 reductions.
  • Houston-based PayOnDelivery, integrates secure payment with delivery for markets like Craigslist and Facebook. It’s low-hassle, fraud-free buying and selling for peer-to-peer marketplaces.
  • Another Lake Charles business, Picasso Analytics has a platform that can reduce delays and save oil refiners and petrochem owners 10 to 15 percent on multi-million dollar turnaround events by providing a single source of truth integrating the schedule, time entry, and shop status.
  • Sarasota, Florida-based Toivoa develops software-based therapies for people with disabilities who experience mental health disorders. On track for FDA approval, the platform is prescription-based, clinically validated, and delivered on your phone.
  • UpBrainery Technologies, founded in Houston, helps students explore careers through digital experiences. AI guides their interests in career paths and credentials their achievements for employers and colleges.
  • Also from Houston, WellWorth (https://wellworthapp.com/), is a financial modeling SaaS platform that helps upstream oil and gas finance leaders improve their decision-making around raising, managing, and deploying capital.

Softeq Venture Studio launched over a year ago with its inaugural cohort in 2021, and the fund was launched last year. Since launch, Softeq has raised 80 percent of its inaugural $40 million Softeq Venture Fund and made investments in 63 startups. Softeq has also reformatted its accelerator program to include two cohort classes per year, allowing for more time to be spent with the Venture Studio and its cohort startups.

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Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to​ launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

New app by Sports Illustrated grants access to 700 sports courts in Houston

Goal!

A new sports center booking app CatchCorner, powered by Sports Illustrated, enables sports enthusiasts in Houston to seamlessly secure a spot for a quick game without membership fees.

It soft-launched in Houston this spring and, according to co-founder and chief operating officer Maya Azouri, has been a huge success.

"The Houston expansion has been jaw-dropping," she said. "Up until now, CatchCorner’s launch in New York City had been our most successful market, but Houston has launched on par with it."

Within a 30-day period this summer, over 30,000 users join the app, Azouri noted, adding that the app would include 700 unique recreational spaces users can choose from in the city.

"There’s a real sports culture here, with athletes of all levels from casual weekend players to competitive amateurs and even pros. The diversity of the sports community, combined with the number of high-quality facilities across the city, makes it a perfect fit for CatchCorner," she said.

CatchCorner in Houston offers bookings for basketball, volleyball, soccer, pickleball, padel, baseball, badminton, and tennis, with plans to include golf simulators and ice rink sports soon. The Zone Sports, Toros HTX, PAC Gym, and Houston Pickleball Center are among the most popular venues.

Using the app is a snap. Once you pick your sport, venues with available slots are listed including distance from you with the booking schedules in the results so there are no surprises. The slots can go fast, so occasional error messages pop up when trying to book, but it's otherwise a three-click process. CatchCorner also helpfully includes a picture of the facilities while booking.

CatchCorner announced Google integration in June that lets users book through the app directly from searches when they look up specific venues. This is slightly less intuitive to use than the app, but it does ultimately work in both mobile and desktops versions. Either way, it greatly streamlines the booking process for people who just want to schedule a quick pickup game somewhere.

"It’s especially useful for casual players or people who want to organize something on short notice," said Azouri. "Whether it’s a weekend basketball run, a weekday futsal match, or a spontaneous pickleball game with friends, CatchCorner makes it easy to coordinate without the usual logistical headaches.

"Some feedback here has been that we’re like 'Expedia for sports.' It’s because booking a flight online is that easy, booking your next game or workout should be just as simple."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

10 Houston billionaires make Forbes' list of richest Americans in 2025

The Rich List

America's wealthiest billionaires are $1.2 trillion richer in 2025, bringing their collective worth to a staggering $6.6 trillion. And Houston's own Richard Kinder has become the richest billionaire in the city, according to the new Forbes 400.

The Kinder Morgan chairman is the 11th richest Texas resident and ranks as the 108th richest American. Kinder also dethroned Tilman Fertitta to claim the title as the wealthiest Houstonian.

The annual Forbes 400 list is a definitive ranking of the wealthiest Americans, using interviews, financial data, and documentation provided by billionaires and their companies.

Kinder's wealth

The publication estimates Kinder's net worth at $10.6 billion, up from $8.1 billion last year. He also appears among Forbes' separate list of the richest billionaires in the world.

"It’s been a year unlike any we’ve seen in the four decades we’ve tracked America’s billionaire class,” said Forbes senior editor Chase Peterson-Withorn in a press release. "The super-rich at the very top are richer than ever — and between the White House and the booming stock market, they’re as powerful as they’ve ever been."

Kinder, 80, co-founded oil and gas pipeline firm Kinder Morgan in 1997, which is now known as one of the largest American energy infrastructure companies. He stepped down as CEO in 2015, though he still chairs the board of directors.

Kinder and his wife, Nancy, also founded Houston-based nonprofit the Kinder Foundation in 1997. The organization provides "major gifts to public causes with the intention of helping people realize healthy and rewarding lives," according to its website.

In May 2025, the Kinders pledged $150 million to Texas Children's Hospital and MD Anderson to create the Kinder Children's Cancer Center.

"Our philanthropic efforts center on supporting transformational projects in Houston, and this initiative exemplifies that mission in every way," said Kinder in a press release. "We were deeply impressed by the extraordinary leadership and unwavering commitment of both UT MD Anderson and Texas Children’s to pursue a bold, collaborative model of care. It is a rare and powerful moment when two leading organizations come together to create something entirely new – something capable of reshaping the future of pediatric cancer care."

The richest Houstonians

In all, 43 Texas billionaires made it on the 2025 Forbes 400 list, and 10 are based in the Houston metro.

Hospitality honcho Fertitta, 68, is the second-richest billionaire in Houston, and his net worth has jumped from $10.1 billion last year to $11 billion in 2025. He owns the Golden Nugget Casinos, the Houston Rockets, Texas-based restaurant and entertainment company Landry's, and also serves as the U.S. Ambassador to Italy.

"Serving as President Trump's ambassador to Italy 'is a real job,' says Fertitta, who personally oversaw the renovation of Villa Taverna, the ambassador's residence in Rome," Forbes wrote in his profile.

Fertitta most recently put his ritzy 250-foot-long superyacht on the market for about $192 million, with Forbes saying he "has a bigger one on order."

Here's how the rest of Houston's billionaires fared on this year's list:

  • Oil tycoon Jeffery Hildebrand ties for No. 123 nationally with an estimated net worth of $10 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
  • Toyota mega-dealer Dan Friedkin ranks 128th nationally with an estimated net worth of $9.7 billion. Last year: $7.6 billion.
  • Houston pipeline heir Randa Duncan Williams ranks 130th with an estimated net worth of $9.5 billion. Fellow pipeline heirs Dannine Avara and Milane Frantz tie for 135th nationally. Each has an estimated net worth of $9.4 billion. Scott Duncan ranks No. 141 with a $9.2 billion estimated net worth.
  • Houston Texans owner Janice McNair ranks 201st nationally with an estimated net worth of $7.3 billion. Last year: $6.2 billion.
  • Energy exploration chief exec George Bishop of The Woodlands ranks No. 325 with an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion. Last year: $5 billion.

Richest billionaires elsewhere in Texas

The richest person in America in 2025 is none other than Austin-based Elon Musk. Musk, 54, saw his net worth skyrocket to $428 billion this year, or $184 billion more than his 2024 net worth. He claimed the No. 1 spot for the fourth time.

Walmart heiress Alice Walton of Fort Worth was dubbed the wealthiest woman in America for 2025. Walton, 75, simultaneously holds the title as the richest woman in the world. Forbes estimates Walton's net worth at $106 billion (up from $89.2 billion last year) and proclaims her as the first female centibillionaire (a person with a 12-digit fortune) in America. Now that's wealth.

"Tariffs. Inflation. Slowing employment. None of it has hit the fortunes of America’s billionaires," Forbes said. "A decade ago, when it took $1.7 billion to make The Forbes 400, a net worth of $3.8 billion was comfortably within the top half of the ranking — now that lofty sum is the minimum required."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

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