Houston-area energy tech startup takes first place in DOE competition

winner, winner

Hertha Metals, based in Conroe, won first place at the 2024 Summer Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Startup Pitch Competition. Photo via Getty Images

Four startups from across the country won over $160,000 in cash prizes from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Technology Transitions earlier this month, and a Houston-area company claimed the top prize.

Hertha Metals, based in Conroe, won first place at the 2024 Summer Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Startup Pitch Competition. The program honors and supports clean energy innovators nominated by clean technology business incubators.

“The EPIC Pitch Competition is a unique opportunity for start ups to highlight their technology, get on the main stage, and receive direct funding,” DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of OTT Vanessa Chan says in a news release. “The startup pitch winners have honed their entrepreneurial skills and demonstrated a critical understanding of their technological impacts, targeted markets, and scalable strategies.”

Focused on environmentally responsible steel, Hertha Metals won the $100,000 prize. The company's steelmaking process reduces emissions by 95 percent, per the news release, while remaining financially accessible. Hertha Metals was nominated by Greentown Labs, which won $25,000 for its nomination.

The program's other 2024 winners included:

Hertha Metals was founded by Laureen Meroueh, a mechanical engineer and materials scientist, in 2022. A Greentown Houston member, the company is also currently in the inaugural cohort of the Breakthrough Energy Innovator Fellows.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

Spun out of Baylor College of Medicine, Phiogen was selected out of 670 companies to pitch at SXSW earlier this month. Photo via Getty Images

Houston startup recognized for inclusivity on journey to commercialize next-gen therapeutics

future of medicine

A new Houston biotech company won a special award at the 16th Annual SXSW Pitch Award Ceremony earlier this month.

Phiogen, one of 45 companies that competed in nine categories, was the winner for best inclusivity, much to the surprise of the company’s CEO, Amanda Burkhardt.

Burkhardt tells InnovationMap that while she wanted to represent the heavily female patient population that Phiogen seeks to treat, really she just hires the most skilled scientists.

“The best talent was the folks that we have and it ends up being we have three green card holders on our team. As far as ethnicities, we have on our team we have Indian, African-American, Korean, Chinese Pakistani, Moroccan and Hispanic people and that just kind of just makes up the people who helped us on a day-to-day basis,” she explains.

Phiogen was selected out of 670 companies to be in the health and nutrition category at SXSW.

“We did really well, but there was another company that also did really well. And so we were not selected for the pitch competition, which we were a little bummed about because I killed the pitch,” Burkhardt recalls.

But Phiogen is worthy of note, pitch competition or not. The new company spun off from research at Dr. Anthony Maresso’s TAILOR Labs, a personalized phage therapy center at Baylor College of Medicine, last June.

“Our whole goal is to create the next generation of anti-infectives,” says Burkhardt.

That means that the company is making alternatives to antibiotics, but as Burkhardt says, “We’re hoping to be better than antibiotics.”

How does it work? Bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria.

“You can imagine them as the predators in the bacteria world, but they don't infect humans. They don't affect animals. They only infect bacteria,” Burkhardt explains.

Phiogen utilizes carefully honed bacteriophages to attack bacteria that include the baddies behind urinary tract infection (UTI), bacteremia (bacteria in the blood), and skin wounds.

The team’s primary focus is on treatment-resistant UTI. One example was a male patient who received Phiogen’s treatment thanks to an emergency-use authorization from the FDA. The gentleman had been suffering from an infection for 20 years. He was treated with Phiogen’s bacteriophage therapy for two weeks and completely cleared his infection with no recurrence.

Amanda Burkhardt is the CEO of Phiogen. Photo via LinkedIn

But Phiogen has its sights set well beyond the first maladies it’s treated. An oft-quoted 2016 report projected that by 2050, 10 million people a year will be dying from drug-resistant infections.

“A lot of scientists call it the silent pandemic because it's happening now, we're living in it, but there's just not as much being said about it because it normally happens to people who are already in the hospital for something else, or it's a comorbidity, but that's not always the case, especially when we're talking about urinary tract infections,” says Burkhardt.

Bacteriophages are important because they can be quickly trained to fight against resistant strains, whereas it takes years and millions of dollars to develop new antibiotics. There are 13 clinical trials that are currently taking place for bacteriophage therapy. Burkhardt estimates that the treatment method will likely gain FDA approval in the next five years.

“The FDA actually has been super flexible on progressing forward. Because they are naturally occurring, there's not really a safety risk with these products,” she says.

And Burkhardt, whose background is in life-science commercialization, says there’s no better place to build Phiogen than in Houston.

“You have Boston, you have the Bay [Area], and you have the Gulf Coast,” she says. “And Houston is cheaper, the people are friendlier, and it’s not a bad place to be in the winter.”

She also mentions the impressive shadow that Helix Park will cast over the ecosystem. Phiogen will move later this year to the new campus — one of the labs selected to join Baylor College of Medicine.

And as for that prize, chances are, it won’t be Phiogen’s last.

PHIOGEN, based at Texas Medical Center Innovation, is headed to Austin next month. Photo courtesy of TMC

Houston biotech startup selected to pitch at SXSW

austin bound

Houston biotech startup PHIOGEN is among 45 finalists that will present at this year’s SXSW Pitch showcase in Austin.

PHIOGEN is one of five food, nutrition, and health startups that will participate in the pitch competition, set for March 9 and 10. A panel of judges will listen to the pitches and then pick the winners. Since 2009, SXSW Pitch finalists have raised more than $23.2 billion in funding.

PHIOGEN has developed the world’s first biogenetics technology platform to harness the power of bacteriophages in the fight against serious drug-resistant infections. Bacteriophages — viruses that are found in bacterial cells — “are ubiquitous in the environment and are recognized as the most abundant biological agent on earth,” according to an article published in 2022 by StatPearls.

Founded in 2023, PHIOGEN is a spinoff of the Baylor College of Medicine’s TAILOR Labs. The startup, based at the Texas Medical Center’s Innovation Hub, has attracted more than $5 million in funding.

“Nothing about our treatments is fabricated; it boils down to creating natural environments that mimic real-life infections, driving biological changes to create ‘super phages’ against the superbugs,” Amanda Burkardt, CEO of PHIOGEN, said in 2023. “As a result, we receive high-performing phage fighters that are trained and ready to deliver safe and effective treatments for clinical applications.”

Professional services firm KPMG is the main sponsor of SXSW Pitch.

Six of this year’s SXSW Pitch judges are from Houston:

  • Heath Butler of Mercury Fund
  • Jesse Martinez of LSA Global
  • Trevor Purvis of the Houston Astros
  • Anu Puvvada of KPMG
  • Irene Tang of StartOut
  • Nate Thompson of HTX Sports Tech

“2024 is an exciting year for startups, and we are looking forward to showcasing these inspiring companies that are making waves in their respective industries and the world as a whole, as well as help connect them with the resources needed to continue advancing,” says Chris Valentine, producer of SXSW Pitch.

After growing in Chicago and raising funding, Partum Health selected Houston to expand its femtech platform. Photo via Getty Image

Growing femtech company chooses Houston for first out-of-state expansion

moving in

A startup dedicated to comprehensive pregnancy, birth and postpartum care has expanded from its Chicago birthplace to Houston.

Last summer, Partum Health raised $3.1 million in seed funding, which makes it possible for the company to begin a nationwide expansion. That begins in Space City.

“We looked at states where there is work to do on outcomes for maternal health. Texas rose to the top and Houston, in many ways is fairly close to Chicago, our home city. The really thriving healthcare ecosystem attracted us as well,” CEO and Co-Founder Meghan Doyle tells InnovationMap.

As a mom of a seven-year-old and a nine-year-old herself, Doyle says that she experienced the gap firsthand in what’s available to women beyond what her obstetrician or midwife does.

“You had to work really hard to cobble together the care you needed. It was a matter of putting together my personal experiences of realizing it’s not just me, it’s systematic,” says Doyle. “I couldn’t get that problem out of my head.”

Neither could her co-founder and head of operations, Matt Rogers, a father of twins whose family had to navigate the NICU and life-threatening complications. They started working together on the business in earnest during the COVID shutdown and debuted Partum Health at the beginning of 2021.

Partum has begun partnering with obstetricians and midwives to help select complementary care that includes lactation support, pelvic floor physical therapy, mental health services, nutrition counseling and doula care. What’s unique about the plan is that, from aiding in behavioral health problems to addressing nutritional issues, the user’s team is distributed around the Houston area and are fully virtual. Physical therapy and other services that must be done in-person may take place either in-home or at third-party locations.

“We’re still in the process of credentialing with insurance companies,” says Doyle.

In Illinois, Partum is already working with BlueCross BlueShield, United Healthcare, Aetna and Cigna for clinical care, so Doyle says she is confident that those companies will soon follow suit in Texas.

While hiring a team in Houston that includes a client care lead, Doyle says that Partum is simultaneously providing services and getting to know the market better. They’re also building more bundled models of care to better assist users in their new landscape.

Doyle and Partum Healthcare participated in the Ignite Healthcare Network’s 2023 program, which concluded last week with a pitch competition. Ignite helps female healthcare founders to connect with mentors and other industry experts that will help them navigate the health tech ecosystem. Doyle was one of nine finalists, but did not place in the top three. But she says the program has helped prepare her for success nonetheless.

“In our world, you’re always pitching,” she admits.

The next steps for Partum include a 2024 rife with expansion. Because building relationships with insurance happens on a state-by-state basis, the company will be able to help women around Texas soon after the company is comfortably established in Houston. The Dallas-Fort Worth area will likely be first, followed by Austin and San Antonio.

“We know there’s a huge gap in access to care that may mean evolving a little bit and reaching out across the state,” Doyle says.

Last month, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission reported that 90 percent of the state’s pregnancy-related deaths are preventable. With access to care like what Partum provides, those complications could become a thing of the past.

Ayse McCracken, founder of Ignite Healthcare Network, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how she's growing her impact on female health tech founders. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston health tech leader to expand accelerator to continue connecting female founders

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 203

With a decades-long career in health care, Ayse McCracken's most recent professional chapter has been laser focused on finding, supporting, and accelerating female-founded startups in health tech with her nonprofit, Ignite Healthcare Network.

Originally founded in 2017 as a pitch competition, Ignite has evolved to become an active and integral program for female health tech entrepreneurs. Ninety-one founders have graduated from Ignite and gone on to raise over $550 million in funding for their ventures. Currently, Ignite has 19 women in its 2023 cohort, which concludes November 9 with the annual Fire Pitch competition.

"Having an impact in the health care industry and finding solutions is important to me," McCracken says of her passion for Ignite on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The second aspect of that is there are so many women in health care, and yet you don't see them in leadership roles."

With Ignite, McCracken is actively seeking out these potential female leaders, and giving them the support — through mentorship, programming, and networking opportunities — they need to grow their business.

Each year, McCracken explains, she's pushing the envelope with what she can accomplish with Ignite. This year, she hosted a new event in Dallas to reach female founders there, and coming soon, Ignite will launch a platform that will extend its relationship with its founders and keep them looped in with potential customers, mentors, investors, and more.

"We're in the process of building our own platform that continues to connect our ecosystem so that we're not just an episode in the journey of an entrepreneur, but that we have the ability to help them along their path," McCracken says. "That path is a rollercoaster for a variety of reasons — whether it's gender or market related — and if we help to provide a community that can provide support for companies that have promise, our goal is to, over time, triple the money that female entrepreneurs are getting."

But McCracken says she wants Ignite to do more than just find investors for her network of founders.

"Success to me isn't just getting people an early stage investment," she explains. "Success to me is getting companies that actually commercialize, get their products in the market, and that they are actually making an impact on health wellbeing, patients, and so forth."

McCracken shares more about the future of Ignite on the podcast. Listen to the interview here — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

Venture Houston is back next month. Here's what you need to know about this year's changes. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston VC conference returns to prioritize decarbonization, curated connections

can't miss event

In two weeks, hundreds of investors, corporate partners, and startups will convene to tackle topics of decarbonization, innovation, and investment. The annual event is also prioritizing something this year — connections.

In its third year, Venture Houston — taking place on Rice University's campus on September 7 — has a theme of "decarbonization in a digital world," but that's not the only thing different this year. The one-day conference has added on a unique event on September 6 to help engage around 50 investors with over 100 Houston startups.

The new activation is called Capital Connect, and HX Venture Fund will matchmake investors and startups for one-on-one meetings meant to spur collisions and collaboration.

"It's not a pitch competition — it doesn't have the stress of that," Sandy Guitar, general partner of HX Venture Fund, tells InnovationMap. "It's really just a way of connecting with a longer term horizon. We didn't want to limit it just to those who are currently raising, but actually include people who maybe just raised six months ago or are not going to raise for 12 more months, but might still want to be in the room."

The official day of the conference will also feature networking opportunities, including a breakfast hosted by DivInc, as well as networking breaks throughout the day.

"Based on feedback we received last year, networking was one of the things that was most celebrated about Venture Houston 2022," Guitar says. "All that space and time — the opportunity to allow people just to connect with one another. So, we're making sure that's a key part of this year as well."

Last year's keynote panel featured Gwyneth Paltrow, who shared her own founder's journey on the Venture Houston stage. This year's keynote address will be with Carmichael Roberts, investment committee co-lead of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which was founded by Bill Gates to support climate change innovation.

While the topic of decarbonization might sound narrow, Guitar emphasizes that this event will not just be for the energy industry. Business everywhere — but especially in Houston — has an increased calling to decarbonization.

"I do think it's important to see the decarbonization not as a hard tech event, but as everything that touches carbon, which is basically everything in our planet in just the coal previously," she says. "Everything we make and use touches the climate."

Guitar adds that HXVF expects a crowd of around 1,000 people to attend the event this year, which would make it one of the largest VC-focused events ever to be held in the region. InnovationMap and EnergyCapital are media partners for the event.

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Houston ranked among top 10 destinations for movers in 2024, report says

On the Move

Houston remains popular as one of the top 10 metropolitan areas for people on the move in 2024, according to U-Haul's Top U.S. Growth Metros and Cities report.

Houston ranked No. 9 in 2024, which is a big jump for the metro after the suburb of Conroe ranked No. 16 in 2023.

The two Texas metros that outranked Houston were Austin (No. 5) and Dallas-Fort Worth, which climbed through the ranks to take the No. 1 spot this year after previously ranking No. 9 in 2023.

College Station, the popular college town, is another Texas perennial: It's No. 6 for the second consecutive year on an accompanying U-Haul list of top growth cities (distinguished as being located outside the top metros).

Alas, Texas was unseated as the top state for movers, according to U-Haul's Top Growth States Report. The Lone Star State landed in the No. 2 spot, pushed aside by South Carolina, which topped the list for the first time.

"Migration to the Southeast and Southwest continues as families gauge their cost of living, job opportunities, quality of life and other factors that go into relocating to a new state," said John "J.T." Taylor, U-Haul International president. "Out-migration remains prevalent for a number of markets across the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast — and particularly California."

The annual migration report is based on how many one-way transactions were made by DIY movers using a U-Haul truck, trailer, or U-Box moving container across the U.S. and Canada.

While U-Haul's numbers don't directly correlate to population or economic growth, it is an interesting look at the performance of the top American cities and states that are attracting newcomers.

The full list of top 10 growth metros for 2024 are:

  • No. 1 – Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas
  • No. 2 – Charlotte, North Carolina
  • No. 3 – Phoenix, Arizona
  • No. 4 – Lakeland, Florida
  • No. 5 – Austin, Texas
  • No. 6 – Nashville, Tennessee
  • No. 7 – Raleigh, North Carolina
  • No. 8 – Palm Bay, Florida
  • No. 9 – Houston, Texas
  • No. 10 – Greenville, South Carolina
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This story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

Being prepared: Has the Texas grid been adequately winterized?

Being Prepared

Houstonians may feel anxious as the city and state experience freezing temperatures this winter. Every year since 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, Texans wonder whether the grid will keep them safe in the face of another. The record-breaking cold temperatures of Uri exposed a crucial vulnerability in the state’s power and water infrastructure.

According to ERCOT’s 6-day supply and demand forecast from January 3, 2025, it expected plenty of generation capacity to meet the needs of Texans during the most recent period of colder weather. So why did the grid fail so spectacularly in 2021?

  1. Demand for electricity surged as millions of people tried to heat their homes.
  2. ERCOT was simply not prepared despite previous winter storms of similar intensity to offer lessons in similarities.
  3. The state was highly dependent on un-winterized natural gas power plants for electricity.
  4. The Texas grid is isolated from other states.
  5. Failures of communication and coordination between ERCOT, state officials, utility companies, gas suppliers, electricity providers, and power plants contributed to the devastating outages.

The domino effect resulted in power outages for millions of Texans, the deaths of hundreds of Texans, billions of dollars in damages, with some households going nearly a week without heat, power, and water. This catastrophe highlighted the need for swift and sweeping upgrades and protections against future extreme weather events.

Texas State Legislature Responds

Texas lawmakers proactively introduced and passed legislation aimed at upgrading the state’s power infrastructure and preventing repeated failures within weeks of the storm. Senate Bill 3 (SB3) measures included:

  • Requirements to weatherize gas supply chain and pipeline facilities that sell electric energy within ERCOT.
  • The ability to impose penalties of up to $1 million for violation of these requirements.
  • Requirement for ERCOT to procure new power sources to ensure grid reliability during extreme heat and extreme cold.
  • Designation of specific natural gas facilities that are critical for power delivery during energy emergencies.
  • Development of an alert system that is to be activated when supply may not be able to meet demand.
  • Requirement for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, to establish an emergency wholesale electricity pricing program.

Texas Weatherization by Natural Gas Plants

In a Railroad Commission of Texas document published May 2024 and geared to gas supply chain and pipeline facilities, dozens of solutions were outlined with weatherization best practices and approaches in an effort to prevent another climate-affected crisis from severe winter weather.

Some solutions included:

  • Installation of insulation on critical components of a facility.
  • Construction of permanent or temporary windbreaks, housing, or barriers around critical equipment to reduce the impact of windchill.
  • Guidelines for the removal of ice and snow from critical equipment.
  • Instructions for the use of temporary heat systems on localized freezing problems like heating blankets, catalytic heaters, or fuel line heaters.

According to Daniel Cohan, professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, power plants across Texas have installed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weatherization upgrades to their facilities. In ERCOT’s January 2022 winterization report, it stated that 321 out of 324 electricity generation units and transmission facilities fully passed the new regulations.

Is the Texas Grid Adequately Winterized?

Utilities, power generators, ERCOT, and the PUCT have all made changes to their operations and facilities since 2021 to be better prepared for extreme winter weather. Are these changes enough? Has the Texas grid officially been winterized?

This season, as winter weather tests Texans, residents may potentially experience localized outages. When tree branches cannot support the weight of the ice, they can snap and knock out power lines to neighborhoods across the state. In the instance of a downed power line, we must rely on regional utilities to act quickly to restore power.

The specific legislation enacted by the Texas state government in response to the 2021 disaster addressed to the relevant parties ensures that they have done their part to winterize the Texas grid.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

3 Houston innovators to know right now

who's who

Editor's note: InnovationMap regularly introduces its readers to a handful of Houston innovators recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. Our first January batch includes three innovators across social impact, health care, and more.

Phillip Yates, CEO of Equiliberty

Phillip Yates joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share why 2025 is the year of launch for Equiliberty. Photo courtesy of Equiliberty

For Phillip Yates, this year will be the year of launch. The attorney-turned-entrepreneur has been working on his fintech platform, Equiliberty, for years now, but come the first half of 2025, it's go time.

"We're going to release our technology in Q2 of this year, and we're looking to commercialize it by the end of this year," Yates says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

The platform connects users with resources to build wealth. Yates, along with his co-founders, Rachel Howard and Cody Bailey, created the company with the mindset that people with lower financial means can take control of their own financial success — in a way that doesn't take away from anyone else. Continue reading.

Meagan Pitcher, co-founder and CEO of Bairitone Health

Meagan Pitcher, co-founder and CEO of Bairitone Health, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Bairitone

There's a slew of treatment options for people living with sleep apnea. But, the bigger problem, as Meagan Pitcher realized during her time at the Texas Medical Center's Biodesign program, is that there's no easy way to reliably diagnose and determine a treatment plan for patients.

"We saw all of the companies trying to solve the problem of making the airway collapse less or make the air way wider — it might be surgery, might be medication, or nerve stimulation," Pitcher says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "One of the things we found was that it was really hard to match a patient with sleep apnea with a good treatment for them. One of the reasons is it's hard to get an understanding of where the individual's site of collapse is as sleep medicine is currently practiced."

As Pitcher went through the TMC Biodesign program, she teamed up with her co-founders — CTO Onur Kilicand and CMO Britt Cross — to find a solution, and together they developed Bairitone Health. The company's technology provides at-home medical imaging using sonar sensing. The non-invasive device has the potential to replace the current standard of care, which is a surgical procedure. Continue reading.

Moody Heard, CEO of BuildForce

Houston-based Buildforce is developing a technology to better connect contractors and the trade professionals they employ. Photo courtesy of Buildforce

Houston-based Buildforce announced it has acquired Ladder, which is a Y Combinator-backed, technology-enabled construction labor marketplace.

The acquisition is part of Buildforce’s expansion plans into the southeastern U.S. and during a time of increased demand for skilled construction talent. Buildforce will work to leverage the Ladder customer base of over 200 customers across six states, as well as its extensive electrician network of over 10,000 pre-screened electricians, which is the largest in the Southeast.

“There are two major problems plaguing the construction labor market,” Moody Heard, co-founder and CEO of Buildforce, says in a news release. “One, the project-based nature of construction work means tradesmen are constantly ‘working themselves out of a job’, meaning high employee turnover. And two, the industry is experiencing a secular decline in the supply of tradesmen relative to surging demand.” Continue reading.

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