Houston's spike in VC deals, accelerator acquired, new coworking, and more innovation news

Short stories

Looking into venture capital deal growth, new coworking coming to town, and more Houston innovation news. Getty Images

Houston has seen some big headlines this month when it comes to innovation news — and you could have missed something.

From a report on venture capital funding last year and new coworking coming to town to a Houston investor selling her accelerator company, here's the latest batch of short stories in Houston innovation.

Houston sees spike in venture capital deals in 2019

Houston saw more venture capital funding in 2019 compared to 2018. Chart via crunchbase.com

Overall, 2019 was a good one for Texas venture capital deals. Austin had a record turnout of money invested in startups. Austin companies raised over $1.8 billion, which put the state capitol in the top 10 cities based on money raised, according to a report by Crunchbase.

And this Texas VC roundup on Crunchbase focused a lot of the Austin funding and didn't harp too much on the other Texas cities. But Houston's numbers are also record breaking. The Bayou City raised nearly $400 million last year — with the bulk of that being recorded in Q2 of 2019.

Houston's recorded $399.6 million in VC deals surpasses 2018's recorded funding by almost $20 million, but if you look at PitchBook and the National Venture Capital Association's data, the amount is higher. According to Pitchbook, the total funding raised in 2019 in Houston deals surprasses $600 million across 98 deals.

Houston investor-founded accelerator acquired

Houston investor Diana Murakhovskaya has sold her New York-based accelerator program. Photo courtesy of The Artemis Fund

New York-based Monarq Incubator, a venture capital-focused accelerator program for women, has been acquired by Female Founders Alliance. Monarq was co-founded by Diana Murakhovskaya, one of the three co-founders of Houston-based, female-focused The Artemis Fund.

Since its founding in 2017, Monarq accelerated 32 companies that have then gone on to raise more than $10 million in venture capital. The combined company, according to a news release, now represents the largest network of women and non-binary venture-scalable founders.

"FFA and Monarq share more than just a mission – we share founder DNA," says Leslie Feinzaig, CEO of Female Founders Alliance, in the release. "Our two communities and accelerator programs were built by women founders, for women founders. We are uniquely able to build programming that accelerates the success of women in our space, and now along with founder cred, we have scale and a national footprint. I am so excited for what we can achieve in this next stage of FFA."

The acquisition means a heightened focus on The Artemis Fund for Murakhovskaya.

"Now that I am full time focused on raising and investing with Artemis, it's great to know that our community and founders will have a home and provide us with a great source of deal flow," she says in an email to InnovationMap.

A new coworking company to enter Houston with Galleria-area office

New Galleria-area coworking is coming later this year. Photo via serendipitylabs.com

Serendipity Labs Coworking, which has over 100 coworking spaces across the United States and United Kingdom, announced its plans to enter six new markets this year. Houston is among the new locations for the coworking company.

Expected top open in the fall, the Houston coworking space will be a 28,331-square-foot space on the 20th floor of the Marathon Oil Tower at 5555 San Felipe St. in the Galleria area. According to the release, Cameron Coworking, a division of Cameron Management, will be the development partner for the Houston market.

"By partnering with asset owners of office, retail and residential buildings and then managing the Labs, we bring our operational expertise and marketing power, and we assure the upscale service standards of one of the top national flexible workplace networks will be met at every location," says John Arenas, chairman and CEO of Serendipity Labs, in a news release.

MassChallenge Texas opens applications for second cohort

Applications are open for MassChallenge Texas' second Houston cohort. Courtesy of MassChallenge

At an event on January 29 in both Houston and Austin, MassChallenge Texas opened applications for its 2020 cohorts

The 4-month accelerator program is set to begin in June and online applications close March 9. Prizes include six months of free office space and up to $250,000 in equity free investment. Click here for more information.

Houston entrepreneur named to 2020 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars

Houston startup founder, Reda Hicks, has been named a Presidential Leadership Scholar. Photo via presidentialleadershipscholars.org

For this sixth year, the Presidential Leadership Scholars announced its class of veterans, educators, physicians, public servants, and corporate professionals to participate in the program. Reda Hicks, founder of GotSpot was named as one of the 60 scholars. The program began this week in Washington D.C..

"I cannot wait to work with, and learn from, these exceptional leaders," Hicks shares on LinkedIn. "And through the program, I will be working on RescueSpot, a community resiliency application of GotSpot Inc."

Another Houstonian was selected too — Ganesh Betanabhatla, who is the managing partner and chief investment officer at Ramas Capital Management.

Ion Smart Cities Accelerator opens applications for second cohort

Aatonomy, a member of the first cohort, walked away with a cash prize at Demo Day. F. Carter Smith/Station Houston

The second cohort for the Ion Smart Cities Accelerator Program has opened applications online. The first cohort, focused on resilience and mobility, is currently in pilot mode. Cohort II will be focused on water purification/quality, air quality, and clean technology.

The applications will close on Monday, February 17, and startups that are selected will be notified the week of March 2.

The program, which was announced in June, is backed by Microsoft and Intel and named its first cohort last fall. The demo day for the first cohort took place last month. The accelerator has its own space and prototyping lab in downtown Houston, which opened in September.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Venus Aerospace closes $91 million Series B to scale hypersonic engine

flight funding

Houston-based Venus Aerospace has closed a $91 million Series B round and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.

The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other investors, according to a news release.

The investment comes about a year after Venus completed the first U.S. flight test of its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The engine is expected to enable vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway and is about 15 percent more efficient than traditional alternatives, according to the company.

Venus Aerospace says the latest round of funding will allow it to move the RDRE from demonstration to deployment and meet customer requirements for the near-term defense and space industries. The company says that the reusable RDRE is designed with a "common propulsion architecture" that can work for multiple industries and mission types.

“This financing marks an important step in moving Venus from breakthrough demonstration to scaled capability,” Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO, said in the news release. “Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust. We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight.”

Venus Aerospace raised a $20 million Series A in 2022, led by Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab. At the time, the company said it would put the funding toward three main technologies: a next-generation rocket engine, aircraft shape and leading-edge cooling system.

The company also picked up an investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the investment arm of aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin, in November 2025—in addition to funding from other investors over the years.

“Since our initial investment, Venus has progressed very quickly in its technology development," Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, added in the release. "Our reinvestment in Venus recognizes Venus’ accomplishments to date and focus on speed to manufacture, cost management and reduction of supply chain constraints. Venus is working effectively to position its propulsion system for the production scale required by defense programs.”

"Venus is exactly the kind of company Houston capital should be backing," Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing partner at Mercury Fund, added in the release. "It combines multiple frontier technologies, domestic manufacturing and clear commercial and national security relevance. We believe this team is positioned to lead an important new chapter in defense and space, and we are proud to support a company building breakthrough technology here in Texas."

Venus Aerospace and Houston clean tech startup Vaulted Deep were named to the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers community earlier this summer. Read more here.

Intuitive Machines lands $148M as part of NASA Moon Base funding

to the moon

Houston-based Intuitive Machines has been awarded $148.3 million to deliver its Nova-C lander to the moon by 2028. The funding is part of $600 million that NASA recently awarded to three companies as part of the agency’s Moon Base Program.

The contracts aim to support sustained human presence and commercial operations on the Moon. Austin-based Firefly Aerospace was awarded $144.2 million by NASA for one mission and Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic netted $297.9 million for two lunar landings. Intuitive Machine's award is the company's sixth task order under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

“We’re building a proving ground for Moon Base operations,” Ryan Stephan, NASA’s Moon Base acting director of cargo landers, said in a news release. “Accelerating our Moon mission ordering cadence and launch opportunities enable us to move quickly to learn, iterate, and improve.”

Under the latest task order, Intuitie Machines will deliver three scientific and operational payloads to the moon, which include a:

Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS) radiation monitor to gather critical environmental safety data
Advanced stereo cameras to analyze surface-plume interactions (SCALPSS)
Laser retroreflector array (LRA) for precise cislunar positioning

The funding breakdown includes a $68.6 million base contract and a $79.7 million performance incentive for Intuitive Machines.

The company says the funding will allow it to create a standardized and repeatable "lunar utility pipeline" for delivering cargo to the moon.

"We are shifting the paradigm from custom aerospace engineering to commercial mass production of lunar infrastructure," Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in a separate news release. "Our flight-proven Nova-C platform allows us to build, test, and deploy multiple landers in parallel using Industry 4.0-powered manufacturing. This contract directly advances our core mission to provide persistent, reliable, and commercial baseline of transport, connectivity, and operations that allows our customers to stay longer and achieve more on the Moon."

NASA also shared that it is exploring plans to send PROMISE, a rover based on the Mars Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, to the moon and it plans to seek proposals for additional lunar lander missions, technology demonstrations, a communications and navigation satellite network, and new science payloads to support its lunar outpost. NASA is developing its Moon Base near the lunar South Pole. The agency expects it to come to fruition sometime after 2032.

Intuitive Machines had received its last CLPS award for $180.4 million in March 2026. It will be the first mission to utilize the company's larger cargo lunar lander, Nova-D. The company was also recently awarded a $1 million grant from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to expand its robotics operations in the state.

UT team develops wearable technology for atmospheric water harvesting

In The Air

Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a prototype jacket that harvests clean drinking water directly from the atmosphere, and it works even in the driest desert conditions.

The research, published in Science Advances, marks the latest milestone in nearly a decade of work by materials scientist and chair professor Guihua Yu and his team at the Cockrell School of Engineering's Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and Texas Materials Institute. The wearable technology marks a significant leap: instead of a bulky, stationary machine, this jacket does the work.

Photo courtesy of UT Austin

"We have been working on atmospheric water harvesting technology for a number of years," Yu says. "This current version is even more wearable. We're transitioning from conventional, more stationary water harvesting to something truly portable and personal."

Yu's lab first published work on hydrogel-based water harvesting around 2019, and the jacket is the latest evolution of that platform, now called AirGel. Last year, the broader AirGel invention won the top prize in the graduate category of the National Collegiate Inventors Competition.

The jacket is woven with specially engineered hydrogel fibers; ultra-porous materials that attract and absorb moisture from the surrounding air much like a household desiccant. Unlike a desiccant, the material doesn't require intense heat to release that water. The hydrogel is thermally responsive, meaning a modest rise in temperature — even from mild solar heating — is enough to release the water it has captured.

So, somebody would be wearing the jacket, or perhaps carrying this gel-like textile as a blanket, as it passively absorbs moisture from the air. Then they would detach the textile panels and place them into a small, portable collector unit; essentially a compact heater. The water evaporates out of the textile, condenses inside the collector, and drips out as clean, drinkable water.

"It immediately becomes drinkable because it already goes through the distillation process," Yu explains.

In trials, the jacket produced between 400 and 900 milliliters of water per day depending on humidity, or roughly 14-30 ounces, nearly a quart, depending on the air's humidity. With one kilogram of the textile, the researchers found they could generate approximately 3.7-4 liters of water in arid conditions, and potentially double that in humid ones. So far, the team has tried the jacket out in very dry, semi-dry, and humid areas, and the jacket was able to pull water from each climate.

Lead researcher Chuxin Lei, a postdoctoral researcher on Yu's team and co-author on the paper, says the goal was to rethink who this technology could serve.

"Many current [atmospheric water harvesting] systems are still built as rigid or stationary platforms, making them less suitable for people who are moving, working outdoors, or operating in some remote environment. This lead us to ask whether we could build a water harvesting system that could become more like clothing — light, wearable, flexible, and naturally suited for personal use," Lei says.

The potential applications are wide-ranging. Yu's team has previously worked with the Department of Defense on water solutions for soldiers, where water logistics can be dangerous and costly. The technology could also serve hikers, emergency responders, disaster relief workers, and agricultural and field workers. Anyone who needs clean water on the go and far from infrastructure.

The team also sees a potential future where the technology complements large-scale centralized water systems rather than replacing them.

"Our solution cannot be a universal solution for all," Yu acknowledges. "But I think it's an extremely important alternative."

For now, the jacket is still a laboratory prototype, but Yu and Lei are optimistic. With the right industry partnerships, they say, the technology could realistically reach commercial scale within three to five years.

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com, written by Natalie Grigson.

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME