METRO launches self-driving shuttle, Data Gumbo hires new exec, and more Houston innovation news

Short stories

METRO launches a driver-less route, Houston biotech company raises millions, and more quick innovation news. Courtesy of METRO

So much Houston innovation news — so little time. In order to help keep in touch with all the news happening among startups and technology in Houston, we're hitting the highlights in this innovation news roundup.

If you know of innovation-focused news happening, email me at natalie@innovationmap.com with the details and subscribe to our daily newsletter that sends fresh stories straight to your inboxes every morning.


METRO launches a self-driving shuttle on Texas Southern University's campus

Courtesy of Metro

The first autonomous shuttle in Houston recently had its maiden voyage on Texas Southern University's campus. The route is a one-mile stretch that is called the "Tiger Walk.' The EasyMile shuttle can transport 12 passengers and is operated by First Transit. The project is a pilot program for METRO to see if it has successful applications in other public transportation efforts.

"When passengers board this all electric vehicle they will be riding into the future and experiencing a mode of transportation that in just a few years may become commonplace," says METRO Chair Carrin Patman in a release.

The first phase of the pilot kicked off June 5, as reported in a previous InnovationMap article.

After being deemed a hot tech company by Crunchbase, Data Gumbo grows its C-suite

Courtesy of Data Gumbo

In June, Data Gumbo was named among Crunchbase's top 50 hottest tech companies. The list looked for growing tech startups that have raised between $5 million and $20 million, with a recent round closing in the past six months. The Houston-based company closed its most recent round of $6 million in the spring.

Following the round completion, Data Gumbo's CEO, Andrew Bruce, noted the funds were intended to further develop the company's technology and grow the team. As of last week, Bruce made good on the promise and announced the company's new chief commercial officer, Sergio A. Tuberquia.

"As our new capital is being used to expand our commercial blockchain network, we are also expanding our internal teams to support our rapid global growth," says Bruce in a news release. "With Sergio joining to lead revenue efforts, this will further our company's mission to help oil and gas companies — and ultimately all industries -—realize greater efficiencies and cost savings in the supply chain. Sergio's mix of startup technology and oil and gas industry experience will greatly benefit Data Gumbo and its customers as the industry moves into digital oilfield solutions like blockchain."

Biotech company extends its Series D round to $43 million

Getty Images

Following a $20 million commitment from Sanford Health, Houston-based InGeneron Inc. has extended its Series D round to $43 million. The funds will go toward further developing the company's regenerative medicine and cell therapy. InGeneron currently has a clinical study for rotator cuff recovery.

The investment by South Dakota-based Sanford Health was announced in March, and last month, InGeneron made the call to expand the series.

"Sanford Health's continued support helps advance InGeneron's regenerative cell therapy into the expansive pivotal trial phase, a significant step toward bringing our therapy into the clinic," says Angelo Moesslang, CEO of InGeneron, in a release. "This is an exciting time for the company, as one of the largest health systems in the United States further affirms the potential of adipose-derived regenerative cell therapy, while we diligently work to make it available to patients."

Rice Business Plan winner to ring the Nasdaq bell

Courtesy of Rice University

The company that won the top prize at the Rice Business Plan Competition and walked away with almost $700,000 is claiming another one of its prizes. Vita Inclinata Technologies will ring the opening bell at Nasdaq on July 3.

The company, which created a technology to advance helicopter safety, will be represented by its CEO, Caleb Carr, and Brad Burke, managing director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, and Will Roper, the U.S. Air Force's assistant secretary for acquisition, will also attend. The livestream footage is available online, beginning at 8:30 am central.

Mercury Fund raising money

Texas Money

Getty Images

Crunchbase broke the news that Houston-based Mercury Fund has secured $82 million of its fourth fund, Mercury Fund Ventures IV, that will total $125 million, per a regulatory filing that PE Hub reported on. Mercury Fund refused to comment on the ongoing raise, but intends to release more information following the close, a representative confirmed to InnovationMap.

According to Crunchbase's proprietary data, it's the largest fund to date for the firm. The most recent fund closed in 2014 at $105 million. Mercury Fund specializes in SaaS, cloud, and data science technology, according to its website.

Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine researcher recognized

Courtesy of Rice University

Olga Dudchenko, a genomics researcher at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine, been named to MIT Technology Review magazine's 2019 list of 35 Innovators Under 35.

Dudchenko, who is completing her postdoctoral fellowship at Rice's Center for Theoretical Biological Physics, has developed a method to sequence and assemble the genome of any organism for less than $1,000. Her process is comparable the that of the Human Genome Project, which cost $3 billion.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Texas still ranks as No. 1 in U.S. for inbound moves, but growth dips

by the numbers

Texas continues to be the country’s No. 1 magnet for newcomers from other states, giving a boost to the state’s economy. However, Texas’ appeal weakened in 2024 compared with the previous year, due in large part to spiking home prices.

An analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data by self-storage platform StorageCafe shows Texas saw net interstate migration of 76,000 people in 2024. Texas’ net interstate migration dropped nearly 50 percent from 2023, according to the analysis. Net migration refers to the number of incoming residents minus the number of outgoing residents.

California remained the top source of newcomers for Texas, sending nearly 77,000 residents to the Lone Star State in 2024, the analysis says. Florida ranked second, followed by New York, Colorado and Illinois.

“These trends reveal Texas’ continued pull from both high-cost coastal markets and other large Sun Belt states, resulting in a mix of affordability-driven and job-driven relocation,” StorageCafe says.

Putting a damper on the influx of new residents: a roughly 124 percent surge in Texas home prices over the past decade, according to StorageCafe.

“While the state remains significantly more affordable than California, its top feeder state, the once-wide pricing gap has narrowed,” says StorageCafe. “For many movers, Texas is still a relative bargain, but no longer an undisputed one.”

Nonetheless, Texas keeps attracting young, highly educated people, which bodes well for the state’s long-term economic outlook, StorageCafe says. More than half of new arrivals to Texas in 2024 held at least a bachelor’s degree, and the age of newcomers averaged 32.

Where are most of these young, highly educated newcomers settling?

Lloyd Potter, former Texas state demographer, tells StorageCafe that population growth in Texas is happening most rapidly in suburban “ring counties” at the expense of slowing growth in urban cores. Ring counties are on the outskirts of major metro areas.

“Many people are moving from urban cores to suburban rings seeking lower costs, newer housing, better schools, and more space,” Potter says. “Typically, a move to a suburban county will be within commuting or hybrid‑commuting distance of major metro economies.”

Artemis II makes historic call to space station with help from Houston Mission Control

History in the making

Still aglow from their triumphant lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts made more history Tuesday, April 7: calling their friends aboard the International Space Station hundreds of thousands of miles away as they headed home from the moon.

It was the first moonship-to-spaceship radio linkup ever. NASA's Apollo crews had no off-the-planet company back in the 1960s and 1970s, the last time humanity set sail for deep space.

"We have been waiting for this like you can’t imagine,” Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman called out.

For Christina Koch on Artemis II and Jessica Meir aboard the space station, it marked a joyous space reunion despite being 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) apart. The two teamed up for the world's first all-female spacewalk in 2019 outside the orbiting lab.

Koch told her “astro-sister” that she'd hoped to meet up with her again in space “but I never thought it would be like this — it's amazing.”

“I'm so happy that we are back in space together,” Meir replied, “even if we are a few miles apart.”

Houston's Mission Control arranged the cosmic chitchat between the four lunar travelers and the space station's three NASA and one French residents.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

By late Tuesday afternoon, the Artemis II astronauts had beamed back more than 50 gigabytes' worth of pictures and other data from the previous day's lunar rendezvous, which set a new distance record for humanity. The highlight: an Earthset photo reminiscent of Apollo 8's Earthrise shot from 1968.

"While they are inspirational and, I think, allow all of us to really feel a little bit of what they were feeling, there's also a lot of science hidden inside of those images," said Mission Control's lead lunar scientist Kelsey Young. “The conversations and the science lessons learned are just beginning."

During a debriefing with Young, the astronauts recounted how they spotted a cascade of pinpricks of light on the lunar surface from impacting cosmic debris. The flashes lasted mere milliseconds and coincided by chance with Monday evening's total solar eclipse.

Young said it was too soon to know whether the crew witnessed an actual meteor shower or more random, run-of-the-mill micrometeoroid hits. Either way, there were “audible screams of delight” in the science operations center, she said.

Koch described being awe-struck by not just the beauty of Earth, “but how much blackness there was around it.”

“It just made it even more special. It truly emphasized how alike we are, how the same thing keeps every single person on planet Earth alive,” she told the space station crew. “The specialness and preciousness of that really is emphasized” when viewing the home planet from the moon.

The first lunar explorers since Apollo 17 in 1972, Wiseman and his crew are aiming for a splashdown off the San Diego coast on Friday to wrap up the nearly 10-day test flight. The recovery ship USS John P. Murtha left port Tuesday for the target zone.

It sets the stage for next year's Artemis III, a lunar lander docking demo in orbit around Earth. Artemis IV will follow in 2028 with two astronauts attempting to land near the lunar south pole.

As for the Orion capsule’s pesky potty, Mission Control assured the astronauts that no maintenance was required Tuesday. The toilet has been on-and-off limits to the crew ever since last week’s launch, prompting them to rely on a backup bag-and-funnel system for urinating.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman told the crew following the lunar flyby Monday night: “We definitely have to fix some of the plumbing” ahead of the next Artemis mission. Engineers suspect a clogged filter in the overboard flushing system.

Aside from the toilet and other relatively minor matters, the mission has gone well, Isaacman noted at a news conference Tuesday, “but I'll breathe easier when we get through reentry and everybody's under chutes and in the water.”

AI-powered Houston startup helps restaurants boost customer loyalty

order up

It’s no secret that restaurant trends move fast and margins run thin. And with the proliferation of platforms like Uber Eats, DoorDash and Easy Cater, customer loyalty is fleeting.

The solution?

How about an AI-powered restaurant technology platform that helps restaurant brands cut back on third-party platforms in favor of driving direct discovery, conversion and loyalty?

Enter Saivory. Founded in 2025 by Stephen Klein, a software investor, and Fajita Pete’s restaurateur Hugh Guill, the Houston-based startup aims to help eateries better understand and activate guest behavior across digital channels as AI increasingly reshapes how consumers discover and engage with brands.

In less than a year, Saivory has partnered with Shipley Do-Nuts and Fajita Pete’s to bring AI-powered ordering to life.

“With Saivory, we were able to answer the question of, ‘what if the ordering process could be reduced to a single step, where customers simply tell us what they want and AI takes care of the rest?’” Klein tells InnovationMap.

The Houston-based startup made such an immediate impact that it was selected as a semi-finalist during Start-Up Alley at MURTEC, the restaurant industry’s leading technology conference, which took place last month in Las Vegas.

“Houston is a great hub for technology innovation, and we were proud to represent the city at MURTEC this year,” says Klein. “We didn’t win, but we were able to talk about some of the work that we have existing in the market for clients right now and a little bit about what we’re working on in the future.”

In the current restaurant technology ecosystem, the third-party aggregators own the customer attention that brings volume to restaurants, while also taking big commissions and having control over the end relationships with the customer.

That can often make it difficult for restaurants to grow loyalty and repeat business from customers. Saivory aims to level the playing field for restaurants, helping them stay more connected to their customers.

Take Saivory’s recent application with Shipley’s Do-Nuts, for example.

Saivory powered the donut giant’s AI-ordering and launched Shipley's website and mobile app to support its over 300 locations in Texas alone.

Shipley’s new AI-powered assistant helps users create personalized order recommendations based on individual or group preferences. And unlike standard chatbox features, the new assistant makes custom recommendations based on multiple customer factors, including budgetary habits, individual flavor preferences and order size. It can also be used for large catering orders.

“They're seeing more traffic to the site and they're seeing when customers use our AI-enabled flows,” Klein says. “And they're seeing higher basket sizes, bigger tickets, by about 25 percent.”

Klein says Saivory’s technology helps strengthen first-party digital relationships, reduce friction and cart abandonment, improve average order value, and delivers personalized, efficient experiences.

“It’s a win-win: the customer gets the right order quickly, while the restaurant gets a bigger margin,” he adds.

Additionally, the technology makes it easier for restaurants to share rewards, loyalty and discounts, ultimately growing more direct traffic and making restaurants less reliant on third-party delivery apps.

Next up for Saivory is adding new components to its platform to enhance the relationship between restaurant and customer, as well as technology around making it easier for restaurants to get found on Google.

“A lot of people are still searching for the best donuts near me,” Klein says. “Or what’s the best Mexican food near me? Customers will increasingly move to AI, where they’re going to ask where they should eat dinner and expect it to just order them dinner. They will eventually expect the technology to know how to do that. So that’s what we’re driving at.”

View All Listings