This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Amanda Ducach of SocialMama, Sam Newman of Little Red Box Grocery, and Gina Luna of GP Capital Partners. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from investment to femtech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.


Amanda Ducach, founder and CEO of SocialMama

Amanda Ducach, founder of SocialMama, is gearing up for a total rebrand and new product launch. Photo courtesy of SocialMama

For years, Amanda Ducach has been collecting data from the users of her social networking app, SocialMama. Now that data is fueling the AI of the new platform and a whole new phase of the company.

"When you have a compatibility-friendship-based product, you have crazy amounts of data. We could have went and sold that — like an unethical company and like a lot of companies we've unfortunately seen do recently. Instead, we used the data to improve our product to create positive health outcomes for our users," Ducach says.

Ducach share more of what she's working on ahead of the launch of the new platform and what it's been like starting and running a consumer-focused app in Houston on the Houston Innovators Podcast. Click here to read more and stream the episode.

Sam Newman, founder of Little Red Box Grocery

Equitable access to services is integral to the vitality of all communities. Photo courtesy

In a recent guest column for InnovationMap, Sam Newman, founder of Little Red Box Grocery, writes of how around 40 million Americans, including five million Texans, live in food deserts. Startups have an opportunity for impact.

"Equitable access to services is integral to the vitality of all communities. Good food, secure housing – it doesn’t just nourish bodies and minds, it can spur new investment into our neighborhoods and prove once and for all that manmade deserts of any kind do not have to exist if we let imagination and innovation prevail. If there was ever a time to prioritize access – and action – it is now," he writes. Click here to read more.

Gina Luna, partner at GP Capital Partners

GP Capital Partners is a part of a new initiative to provide training and job placement for future cybersecurity professionals. Photo courtesy

Houston-based private credit and equity investment firm GP Capital Partners has teamed up with LP First Capital, a private equity firm with offices in Austin and New York, to form National Cyber Group. The new entity, headquartered in Washington, D.C., will provide foundational IT certification training, job placement resources, and more, according to a news release.

Gina Luna, managing partner of GP Capital Partners, says this is a huge opportunity for Houston, as the city's tech jobs continue to grow, and the city continues to be a major hub for tech talent.

"There are many Houston companies that need well-trained, qualified cybersecurity analysts and many hard-working Houstonians that would find a career in cybersecurity an attractive path to better opportunity for themselves and their families. National Cyber Group can provide both, which is certainly good for Houston," she says. Click here to read more.

Equitable access to services is integral to the vitality of all communities. Photo by Erik Scheel/Pexels

Founder: Inflation is creating a barrier to healthy food access, affordable housing for Houstonians

guest column

Approximately 40 million Americans, including five million Texans, live in food deserts. These are communities with low access to fresh and healthy foods and high access to unhealthy alternatives, where a trip to the grocery store is oftentimes a tradeoff between convenience, cost, and choice. Everyone deserves (indeed, needs) good food access, yet current market offerings are not designed to satisfy demand.

And food is but one part of a tapestry of disparity – which includes among other things health and wellness services, digital connectivity, debt and access to credit, and housing insecurity – that disproportionately impacts historically marginalized communities and leaves residents vulnerable to greater risks. These issues, long-standing though they are, have become more acute with inflation, as the cost of everything goes up and wages lag.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the price of food that people eat at home rose 10 percent in the last year. At the same time, the cost of rent in Houston also increased 10 percent last year - Houston now ranks in the top 50 most expensive cities in America for renters. Across Texas, rents are up 30 percent in Austin, 11 percent in San Antonio, and 17 percent in Dallas-Fort Worth last year. When tenants face a rent increase it hampers their ability to move, because even if they are working, it can be a challenge to pay the lump sum of a new first month’s rent plus a security deposit. This is a huge barrier for our neighbors living paycheck to paycheck.

Whether it’s rent or the price of eggs, families are being squeezed, and in order to bridge this widening chasm – the Market Gap and Equity Gap – we need to embrace fresh solutions for all who live in service deserts. Fortunately, new organizations are coming to the fore in a targeted and meaningful way:

Tech start-ups such as Providers and Forage are empowering low-income households with greater access and insight on how and where to use food stamps.

At the community level, New York-based Wellfare is leveraging density and community knowledge to run a direct-to-door food subscription model for low-income households. And here in Houston, my organization, Little Red Box Grocery, will soon be launching a reimagined community store, designed to bring the benefits of good food access + health to Houston’s Food Deserts.

Yet when it comes to the wellspring of uncertainty, so much flows downstream from unstable housing it is hard to overstate its importance on family stability. If a landlord increases the rent, some renters can certainly move, but others have no choice but to pay up as they cannot afford the upfront costs required to find alternative housing. And the more one spends on housing, the less there is for life’s other many necessities… including food.

Fresh food access and housing insecurity are intertwined challenges that we must meet head on. Fortunately, companies like Rhino are helping solve one of renters’ biggest financial hurdles – the up-front cash required for a security deposit – with security deposit insurance. This gives renters a low-rate policy as affordable as $5 per month for an apartment renting for $1,000 per month. Some property owners in Texas are already accepting it as an alternative way to secure an apartment.

The benefits of this kind of arrangement are easy to see. People can put money that would otherwise be locked away in a security deposit into savings, pay down debt, buy groceries for their family in a manner that improves home and community health and well-being. One could even start a business, or pursue a degree. The point is that it frees up home economics to be used in a manner most efficient for that family.

And services such as this should help level the playing field. In a recently released survey of renters, renters of color were more likely to pay a security deposit than white renters and they paid $150 more on average in the security deposit than white renters. Renters of color also submitted more applications and paid higher application fees than white renters.

Equitable access to services is integral to the vitality of all communities. Good food, secure housing – it doesn’t just nourish bodies and minds, it can spur new investment into our neighborhoods and prove once and for all that manmade deserts of any kind do not have to exist if we let imagination and innovation prevail. If there was ever a time to prioritize access – and action – it is now.

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Sam Newman is the founder of Houston-based Little Red Box Grocery bringing the benefits of good food access to Houston’s Second Ward.

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Houston health orgs lost $58M in canceled, stalled NIH grants, new report shows

research cuts

Seven institutions in the Houston area have lost nearly $60 million in grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that were aimed at funding health research.

The Science & Community Impacts Mapping Project identified 37 cancelled or frozen NIH grants worth $58.7 million that were awarded to seven Houston-area institutions. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston suffered the biggest loss — five grants totaling nearly $44.8 million.

The Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health reported in May that over the previous several months across the U.S., the federal government had terminated roughly 2,100 NIH research grants worth around $9.5 billion.

In August, the U.S. Supreme Court derailed researchers’ efforts to reinstate almost $2 billion in research grants issued by NIH, according to Nature.com.

“Make no mistake: This was a decision critical to the future of the nation, and the Supreme Court made the wrong choice. History will look upon these mass National Institutes of Health (NIH) research grant terminations with shame,” the American Association of Medical Colleges said in a statement. “The Court has turned a blind eye to this grievous attack on science and medicine, and we call upon Congress to take action to restore the rule of law at NIH.”

Texas health researchers rely heavily on NIH grants and contracts. During the federal government’s 2024 budget year, NIH awarded $1.9 billion in grants and contracts that directly supported 30,553 jobs and more than $6.1 billion in economic activity in Texas, according to the United for Medical Research coalition.

Here’s a rundown of the cancelled and frozen NIH grants in the Houston area.

  • University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston: Five cancelled or frozen grants, totalling approximately $44.8 million in funding lost.
  • Baylor College of Medicine: 17 grants cancelled or frozen, totalling approximately $8 million in funding lost
  • University of Houston. Five cancelled or frozen grants, totalling approximately $3.7 million in funding lost
  • University of Texas Health Science Center Houston: Five grants cancelled or frozen, totaling approximately $1.1 million in funding lost.
  • University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center: Two grants cancelled or frozen, totalling $831,581 in funding
  • Rice University. Two grants cancelled or frozen, totaling $254,645 in funding lost
  • Prairie View A&M University: One grant cancelled or frozen, totalling $31,771 in funding lost

Magnolia milkshake shop blends up a sweet partnership with Comcast Business

Treat Takeover

Comcast Business (CB) powers businesses of every size with fast and reliable phone, mobile, internet, cybersecurity, and television services. Houston’s local CB team also stands behind entrepreneurs and small businesses, knowing they’re the heart of thriving communities: driving growth, sparking innovation, and creating jobs close to home.

Magnolia hometown favorite Chill Milkshake and Waffle Bar was the site of Comcast Business’ latest road trip to treat customers to a cool and refreshingly free treat, picking up the tab for several hours for nearly 200 customers.

Chill Milkshake and Waffle Bar, Magnolia Surprise! Your order is free.Photo courtesy of Comcast Business

“We aren’t just about products and services, we are about building partnerships in our community and playing a supporting role, it means the world to us,” says Heather Orrico, vice president of Comcast Business in Texas.

Chill Milkshakes and Waffle Bar, located at 6606 FM 1488 Rd., Suite 110 in Magnolia, opened in December 2020 and has been a Comcast Business customer for the last two years.

Who would’ve thought you’d need WiFi to serve milkshakes and waffles? Technology runs almost every part of the business.

“In a world where people rarely carry cash anymore, we have to be able to process payments electronically and promptly. Otherwise, the day stops. Nobody wants that,” says owner Jeanie Rosett. “We count on WiFi to efficiently complete transactions and guest payments, process online orders, and keep our music lively.”

It's no surprise that Chill’s array of flavors and dedication to making the perfect milkshake (along with waffles and sandwiches) have earned them the title of best milkshake in Texas by USA Today, followed by ranking sixth-best milkshake in the nation by Travel + Leisure.

Chill’s family environment creates a space where everybody can hang out, or the kids can come on their own and parents feel they are safe. “Good WiFi keeps them connected,” says store manager Laura Mabery. “We also have people who stop in with their laptop, have a hotdog and a shake while continuing to work. We live in a world that needs to be connected! You can do that at Chill-Magnolia.”

Comcast Business A sticker in the window lets everyone know.Photo courtesy of Comcast Business

While Mabery and Rosett appreciate the upgrade in customer service and reliability that was missing from their previous service provider, they were honored and pleasantly surprised to be selected for the recent Comcast Business “take over.”

“It's reassuring to know that our internet needs are taken care of, but that Comcast Business also supports us as a hometown commodity,” says Mabery. “And a free Chill milkshake...what's not to love about that?"

Houston robotics co. unveils new robot that can handle extreme temperatures

Hot New Robot

Houston- and Boston-based Square Robot Inc.'s newest tank inspection robot is commercially available and certified to operate at extreme temperatures.

The new robot, known as the SR-3HT, can operate from 14°F to 131°F, representing a broader temperature range than previous models in the company's portfolio. According to the company, its previous temperature range reached 32°F to 104°F.

The new robot has received the NEC/CEC Class I Division 2 (C1D2) certification from FM Approvals, allowing it to operate safely in hazardous locations and to perform on-stream inspections of aboveground storage tanks containing products stored at elevated temperatures.

“Our engineering team developed the SR-3HT in response to significant client demand in both the U.S. and international markets. We frequently encounter higher temperatures due to both elevated process temperatures and high ambient temperatures, especially in the hotter regions of the world, such as the Middle East," David Lamont, CEO of Square Robot, said in a news release. "The SR-3HT employs both active and passive cooling technology, greatly expanding our operating envelope. A great job done (again) by our engineers delivering world-leading technology in record time.”

The company's SR-3 submersible robot and Side Launcher received certifications earlier this year. They became commercially available in 2023, after completing initial milestone testing in partnership with ExxonMobil, according to Square Robot.

The company closed a $13 million series B round in December, which it said it would put toward international expansion in Europe and the Middle East.

Square Robot launched its Houston office in 2019. Its autonomous, submersible robots are used for storage tank inspections and eliminate the need for humans to enter dangerous and toxic environments.

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.