Houston energy tech startup raises $11M to grow its team locally

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Houston-based Datagration Solutions Inc. has raised millions in its latest round — led partially by a local VC firm — to grow its local presence. Photo via Datagration Solutions/Facebook

An $11 million round of funding will fuel national and international growth at Houston-based Datagration Solutions Inc., whose cloud-based software aggregates data to improve workflows and analytics at upstream oil and gas operators.

Houston-based venture capital firm Quantum Energy Partners LLC and New York City-based venture capital firm Global Reserve Group LLC led the round. Datagration represents the sixth investment in energy tech involving the duo of Quantum Energy Partners and Global Reserve Group.

Braxton Huggins, chief marketing officer at Datagration, says the new capital will enable the company to build a technology team in Houston; add to its operations, sales, and marketing team in Houston; and supplement its development team in Austria. These new hires will help Datagration expand its national and international market presence, he says.

Huggins says Datagration aims to more than double in size by the end of 2021. The startup currently employs more than 30 people.

Datagration, formerly known as Oilsphere Inc., is a relative newcomer in the oil and gas industry. In May, Datagration acquired Austria-based Myr:Conn Solutions GmbH, which had operated the PetroVisor platform since 2010.

The PetroVisor platform lets customers pull data from legacy systems to streamline processes, keep operating costs and capital expenses in line, and improve workforce efficiency, Huggins says. All of those outcomes are "precisely what is required, given today's low and volatile commodity price environment," he says.

"PetroVisor has already delivered game-changing financial results for many E&P companies and is ready to scale globally," Peter Bernard, executive chairman of Datagration, says in a release. "The platform increases returns [from] legacy brownfield and greenfield reservoirs, and gives engineers more time to make engineering decisions that will improve profitability."

Nine days after Datagration announced the $11 million in funding, the company formally unveiled its executive management team. Aside from Bernard and Huggins, team members are:

  • J. Ike Epley, vice chairman.
  • Jorge Machnizh, president and CEO.
  • Michael Stundner, executive vice president of technology.
  • Dale Sperrazza, chief commercial officer.
  • Kenton Gray, chief technology officer.
  • David Freer, chief financial officer.
  • Carol Piovesan, senior vice president.
  • Tom Jordan, vice president of corporate development.
  • Lars Olrik, vice president of sales.

"Datagration strongly believes that the next industry opportunity is to provide a platform ecosystem that enables open integration and agnostic access to the most valuable company asset, the customer's data," Machnizh says in a letter posted on the company's website.

Market research and advisory firm Mordor Intelligence LLC says price volatility and stepped-up competition in the oil and gas industry are driving the use of big data to make "smart decisions." As a result, the firm says, big data in oil and gas is expected to see "exponential growth" from 2020 to 2025. A paper published in 2018 in the journal Petroleum identified big data analytics as an "emerging trend" for exploration, drilling, reservoir engineering, and production engineering in the upstream sector.

Darryl Willis, global vice president for energy at Microsoft Corp., said at a conference last year in Norway that the industry should brace for a "tsunami" of big data. "Data is the new common denominator that every industry, including the oil and gas business, is grappling with," Willis said.

Ravindra Puranik, oil and gas analyst at data analytics and consulting company GlobalData PLC, says concerns over the decline of profits and the rise of renewable energy are propelling incremental growth of big data in oil and gas.

"The oil and gas industry has always generated huge volumes of data daily across the value chain. However, despite being awash with money, it has been poor at data management," Puranik says. "It is only when profits drop that the industry starts to investigate how to use data to improve operational efficiency. However, this laissez-faire approach is less prevalent now."

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Houston researcher builds radar to make self-driving cars safer

eyes on the road

A Rice University researcher is giving autonomous vehicles an “extra set of eyes.”

Current autonomous vehicles (AVs) can have an incomplete view of their surroundings, and challenges like pedestrian movement, low-light conditions and adverse weather only compound these visibility limitations.

Kun Woo Cho, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Rice professor of electrical and computer engineering Ashutosh Sabharwal, has developed EyeDAR to help address such issues and enhance the vehicles’ sensing accuracy. Her research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

The EyeDAR is an orange-sized, low-power, millimeter-wave radar that could be placed at streetlights and intersections. Its design was inspired by that of the human eye. Researchers envision that the low-cost sensors could help ensure that AVs always pick up on emergent obstacles, even when the vehicles are not within proper range for their onboard sensors and when visibility is limited.

“Current automotive sensor systems like cameras and lidar struggle with poor visibility such as you would encounter due to rain or fog or in low-lighting conditions,” Cho said in a news release. “Radar, on the other hand, operates reliably in all weather and lighting conditions and can even see through obstacles.”

Signals from a typical radar system scatter when they encounter an obstacle. Some of the signal is reflected back to the source, but most of it is often lost. In the case of AVs, this means that "pedestrians emerging from behind large vehicles, cars creeping forward at intersections or cyclists approaching at odd angles can easily go unnoticed," according to Rice.

EyeDAR, however, works to capture lost radar reflections, determine their direction and report them back to the AV in a sequence of 0s and 1s.

“Like blinking Morse code,” Cho added. “EyeDAR is a talking sensor⎯it is a first instance of integrating radar sensing and communication functionality in a single design.”

After testing, EyeDAR was able to resolve target directions 200 times faster than conventional radar designs.

While EyeDAR currently targets risks associated with AVs, particularly in high-traffic urban areas, researchers also believe the technology behind it could complement artificial intelligence efforts and be integrated into robots, drones and wearable platforms.

“EyeDAR is an example of what I like to call ‘analog computing,’” Cho added in the release. “Over the past two decades, people have been focusing on the digital and software side of computation, and the analog, hardware side has been lagging behind. I want to explore this overlooked analog design space.”

Houstonians make Forbes billionaires list and more top innovation news

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Editor's note: The top innovation news of the month finds leading Houstonians in the Forbes and Inc. spotlight. Plus, we see where Texas ranks among the most innovative states right now. Below are the five most-read InnovationMap stories published March 16-30, 2026:

1. Kinder leads 19 Houstonians on Forbes' World's Billionaires List 2026

Kinder leads 19 Houstonians on Forbes' World's Billionaires List 2026Pictured: Nancy and Richard Kinder, the richest Houstonian, according to the Forbes 400. Photo by Michelle Watson/Catchlight Group

According to Forbes, there has “never been a better time to be a billionaire” than in 2026, and the publication's newest World’s Billionaires List has revealed the 19 Houston billionaires that have risen among the wealthiest worldwide. Kinder Morgan chairman Richard Kinder surpassed hospitality honcho Tilman Fertitta as the richest billionaire in Houston, ranking No. 232 on the global list with an estimated net worth of $13 billion. His net worth has grown by $2.4 billion since last year. Continue reading.

2. 6 Houston entrepreneurs land on coveted Inc. Female Founders 500 list

Houston founders Laureen Meroueh, LaToshia Norwood, Sassie Duggleby, Nina Magon, Stephanie Murphy and Lauren Rottet were named to Inc. Magazine's 2026 Female Founders 500. Photos via LinkedIn and company websites

Six Houston female entrepreneurs and innovators were named to the 2026 Female Founders 500 list. The annual list compiled by Inc. Magazine recognizes female founders based in the U.S. who have built businesses that have moved their industries forward. The group collectively generated approximately $12.3 billion in 2025 revenue and $12.2 billion in funding to date, according to Inc. Five Houstonians were named to the list last year. Continue reading.

3. Texas ranks as the No. 13 most innovative state in 2026 study

WalletHub assigns Texas a No. 13 ranking for innovation among the states. Photo via Getty Images

During a SXSW reception March 12 at the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, Gov. Greg Abbott hailed Texas as the No. 1 state for innovation. Personal finance website WalletHub doesn’t see it that way, though. A new study from WalletHub assigns Texas a No. 13 ranking for innovation among the states and the District of Columbia. D.C. comes out on top, followed by Massachusetts, California, Colorado and Washington. Mississippi appears at the bottom of the list. Continue reading.

4. Rice to lead Space Force tech institute under $8.1M agreement

Rice University will lead a new U.S. Space Force-backed consortium to fast-track breakthrough remote sensing technologies. Photo via Getty Images

Rice University has signed an $8.1 million cooperative agreement to lead the U.S. Space Force University Consortium/Space Strategic Technology Institute 4 (SSTI). The new entity will be known as the Center for Advanced Space Sensing Technologies (CASST) at Rice and will focus on developing innovative remote sensing technologies. Continue reading.

5. Houston startup is off to the races with its innovative running shoes

Veloci Running was founded by a Rice University cross country runner. Photo via velocirunning.com

Despite Houston’s reputation as a sneaker town, there are few actual shoe companies headquartered in the Bayou City. One that is up and running is Veloci Running, an innovative enterprise that combines the founder’s history as a track runner for Rice University with the realities of running in a changing world. Continue reading.

12 winners named at CERAWeek clean tech pitch competition in Houston

top teams

Twelve teams from around the country, including several from Houston, took home top honors at this year's Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition at CERAWeek.

The fast-paced event, held March 25, put on by Rice Alliance, Houston Energy Transition Initiative and TEX-E, invited 36 industry startups and five Texas-based student teams focused on driving efficiency and advancements in the energy transition to present 3.5-minute pitches before investors and industry partners during CERAWeek's Agora program.

The competition is a qualifying event for the Startup World Cup, where teams compete for a $1 million investment prize.

PolyJoule won in the Track C competition and was named the overall winner of the pitch event. The Boston-based company will go on to compete in the Startup World Cup held this fall in San Francisco.

PolyJoule was spun out of MIT and is developing conductive polymer battery technology for energy storage.

Rice University's Resonant Thermal Systems won the second-place prize and $15,000 in the student track, known as TEX-E. The team's STREED solution converts high-salinity water into fresh water while recovering valuable minerals.

Teams from the University of Texas won first and second place in the TEX-E competition, bringing home $25,000 and $10,000, respectively. The student winners were:

Companies that pitched in the three industry tracts competed for non-monetary awards. Here are the companies named "most-promising" by the judges:

Track A | Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization

Track B | Advanced Manufacturing, Materials, & Other Advanced Technologies

  • First: Licube, based in Houston
  • Second: ZettaJoule, based in Houston and Maryland
  • Third: Oleo

Track C | Innovations for Traditional Energy, Electricity, & the Grid

The teams at this year's Energy Venture Day have collectively raised $707 million in funding, according to Rice. They represent six countries and 12 states. See the full list of companies and investor groups that participated here.

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

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