3 alumni-founded startups claim cash prizes at Rice University pitch competition

winner, winner

These three startups walked away from a pitch competition with thousands of dollars in equity-free prizes. Photo courtesy of Rice University

Three startups founded by Rice University graduates have won investment prizes at an annual pitch competition.

The annual H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge, or NRLC, welcomed a panel of judges to hear from six alumni-founded startups in the finals last week. The prizes on the line totaled $65,000 in equity-free funding. The event, which is separate from the student version of the competition, is hosted by Rice’s Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

The big winner of the 2022 competition was Rhythio Medical, a preventative heart arrhythmias treatment startup. The company won first place, which included $30,000 in equity-free funding, as well as the Audience Choice Award that came with $1,500.

Taking second place, Synopic, which facilitates faster and more accurate surgical procedures through improved endoscopic vision technology, won $20,000 in equity-free funding. Lastly, Green Room, a platform that streamlines taxes and payments for touring artists, clinched third place and $15,000.

The event, named for Rice professor emeritus and entrepreneurship program founder H. Albert Napier, was sponsored by Mercury Fund, T-Minus Solutions and Chevron Technology Ventures. This year's finalists were selected by judges made up of Rice alumni. Three judges — Danielle Conkling, director at Silicon Valley Bank, Paul Manwell, senior director at Google, and Joanna Nathan, manager of new ventures at Johnson & Johnson — listened to and evaluated each company's five-minute pitch and followed up with questions.

Rhythio Medical was founded by CEO Kunal Shah, class of 2022, and Savannah Esteve, who also serves as head of product. The technology includes a surgically injected wire that makes an irregular heart work like a healthy one. It works alongside a traditional implantable cardioverter defibrillator, however, the wire but works to prevent arrhythmias, while ICDs treat arrhythmias with a painful shock to the patient’s heart. The company lists the Texas Heart Institute and the University of Texas at Austin as its research partners.

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FDA greenlights Houston surgery robotics company's unique technology

headed to clinical trials

A Houston surgical robotics company has gotten a Investigational Device Exemption from the FDA to go forward with human trials.

This news allows EndoQuest Robotics to begin its Prospective Assessment of a Robotic-Assisted Device in Gastrointestinal Medicine (PARADIGM) study, which will be conducted at leading United States health care facilities, including Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston), Mayo Clinic (Scottsdale), Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland), AdventHealth (Orlando), and HCA Healthcare (Houston). The study will include surgeries on 50 subjects, who will hopefully begin to enroll in January.

“The foundational thesis is we're trying to make sure that the world's largest medical center is also the world's largest med tech innovation center,” Eduardo Fonseca, interim CEO of EndoQuest Robotics, tells InnovationMap.

His company is well on its way to helping to assure that, through making history of its own. EndoQuest is behind the world's first Flexible Robotic Surgical System, a technology that may one day transform surgery as we know it.

The idea to use these novel robots for surgery came from Dr. Todd Wilson, a surgeon at UTHealth Houston, who spent his medical education, residency, and fellowship at the institution.

“I had really focused in my practice on trying to do everything possible to improve outcomes for patients,” Wilson explains. “And there seemed to be a pretty good correlation that the smaller the incisions or the fewer incisions, the better patients would do.”

The stumbling block? The necessary small incisions are difficult for human surgeons to make with current technology. But UTHealth was part of the solution.

“Right there in the University of Texas was a microsurgical lab where they were focusing on trying to develop robotics, but the application was still a little bit fuzzy,” Wilson says.

Using their innovations to solve Wilson’s problem turned out to be the start of the company now known as EndoQuest Robotics.

The first indication for the system is for colon lesions. But in the future it could be used for practically any minimally invasive surgery (MIS). That means that the robots could help to perform anything from a tonsillectomy to cholecystectomy (gallbladder removal) to non-invasive colorectal procedures, should those lesions prove to be cancerous.

According to Fonseca, last year was the first on record that there were more MIS, including laparoscopic and robotic surgeries, than conventional ones in the U.S. The time is right to forge ahead with the flexible robotic surgical system. Days ago, the EndoQuest team announced that its Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application for its pivotal colorectal clinical study was approved by the FDA.

“Our end point is a device that can be mass-manufactured and very safe for patients and has a short learning curve, so therefore, we intend to learn a lot during these trials that will inform our ultimate design,” says Fonseca.

He adds that it’s a “brilliant” group of engineers that has set EndQuest apart, including both teams in Houston and in South Korea.

“We can move twice as fast as anyone else,” jokes engineer Jiwon Choi.

Despite the extra brain power provided by the South Korea engineers, Fonseca says that EndoQuest’s beginnings are “as much of a Houston story as you could find.”

Founder bets on Houston to grow innovative corrosion detection technology

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 265

Despite having success in taking his technology from lab to commercialization, Anwar Sadek made the strategic decision to move his company, Corrolytics, from where it was founded in Ohio to Houston.

"Houston is the energy capital of the world. For the technology we are developing, it is the most strategic move for us to be in this ecosystem and in this city where all the energy companies are, where all the investors in the energy space are — and things are moving really fast in Houston in terms of energy transition and developing the current infrastructure," Sadek, co-founder and CEO of Corrolytics, says on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

And as big as a move as it was, it was worth it, Sadek says.

"It's been only a year that we've been here, but we've made the most developments, the most outreach to clients in this one last year."



The technology Sadek and his team have created is a tool to detect microbial corrosion — a major problem for industrial businesses, especially within the energy sector. Sadek describes the product as being similar to a testing hit a patient would use at home or in a clinic setting to decipher their current ailments.

Users of the Corrolytics test kit can input their pipeline sample in the field and receive results via Corrolytics software platform.

"This technology, most importantly, is noninvasive. It does not have to be installed into any pipelines or assets that the company currently has," Sadek explains. "To actually use it, you don't have to introduce new techniques or new processes in the current operations. It's a stand-alone, portable device."

Corrolytics approach is to help revolutionize and digitize microbial corrosion detection — both to improves efficiency and operational cost for industrial companies, but also to move the needle on a cleaner future for the energy industry.

"We are having an energy transition — that is a given. As we are bringing new energy, there will be growth of infrastructure to them. Every single path for the energy transition, corrosion will play a primary role as well," Sadek says.

Corrolytics hopes to work with new energies from the beginning to used the data they've collected to prevent corrosion in new facilities. However, the company's technology is already making an impact.

"Every year, there is about 1.2 gigaton of carbon footprint a year that is released into the environment that is associated with replacing corroded steel in general industries," Sadek says. "With Corrolytics, (industrial companies) have the ability to extend the life of their current infrastructure."

Sadek says his move to Houston has already paid off, and he cites one of the company's big wins was at the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards, where Corrolytics won two awards.

UH researchers secure $3.3M for AI-powered subsurface sensing system to revolutionize underground power lines

going under

Researchers from the University of Houston — along with a Hawaiian company — have received $3.3 million in funding to explore artificial intelligence-backed subsurface sensing system for safe and efficient underground power line installation.

Houston's power lines are above ground, but studies show underground power is more reliable. Installing underground power lines is costly and disruptive, but the U.S. Department of Energy, in an effort to find a solution, has put $34 million into its new GOPHURRS program, which stands for Grid Overhaul with Proactive, High-speed Undergrounding for Reliability, Resilience, and Security. The funding has been distributed across 12 projects in 11 states.

“Modernizing our nation’s power grid is essential to building a clean energy future that lowers energy costs for working Americans and strengthens our national security,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in a DOE press release.

UH and Hawaii-based Oceanit are behind one of the funded projects, entitled “Artificial Intelligence and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Real-Time Advanced Look-Ahead Subsurface Sensor.”

The researchers are looking a developing a subsurface sensing system for underground power line installation, potentially using machine learning, electromagnetic resistivity well logging, and drone technology to predict and sense obstacles to installation.

Jiefu Chen, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UH, is a key collaborator on the project, focused on electromagnetic antennas installed on UAV and HDD drilling string. He's working with Yueqin Huang, assistant professor of information science technology, who leads the geophysical signal processing and Xuqing Wu, associate professor of computer information systems, responsible for integrating machine learning.

“Advanced subsurface sensing and characterization technologies are essential for the undergrounding of power lines,” says Chen in the release. “This initiative can enhance the grid's resilience against natural hazards such as wildfires and hurricanes.”

“If proven successful, our proposed look-ahead subsurface sensing system could significantly reduce the costs of horizontal directional drilling for installing underground utilities,” Chen continues. “Promoting HDD offers environmental advantages over traditional trenching methods and enhances the power grid’s resilience.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

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