3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Emma Fauss of Medical Informatics Corp., Anas Al Kassas of INOVUES, and Scott Blair of Popable. Photos courtesy

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

Emma Fauss, CEO and co-founder of Medical Informatics Corp.

A Houston startup that created a remote monitoring and care platform has raised millions in financing. Image via michealthcare.com

Houston-based Medical Informatics Corp. closed a $17 million series B co-led by Maryland-based Catalio Capital Management and California-based Intel Capital. The financing also includes an additional $10 million in debt led by Catalio through Catalio’s structured equity strategy, according to a news release.

“We are excited to have had this round co-led by Catalio and Intel Capital," says Emma Fauss, CEO and co-founder of MIC, in the release. "Catalio brings significant financial and technical resources, while Intel Capital possesses strong operational and industry experience, and we look forward to continuing to leverage both firms’ expertise as we continue to scale.”

MIC created an FDA-cleared virtual care platform, called Sickbay, that gives health care providers and hospitals away to remotely monitor patients in any setting with vendor-neutral real-time medical device integration, workflow automation and standardization. Click here to read more.

Anas Al Kassas, founder and CEO of INOVUES

INOVUES Founder and CEO Anas Al Kassas joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how he’s moving the needle on the energy transition within the construction and architectural industries. Photo courtesy of INOVUES

An architect by trade, Anas Al Kassas says he was used to solving problems in his line of work. Each project architects take on requires building designers to be innovative and creative. A few years ago, Kassas took his problem-solving background into the entrepreneurship world to scale a process that allows for retrofitting window facades for energy efficiency.

“If you look at buildings today, they are the largest energy-consuming sector — more than industrial and more than transportation,” Kassas, founder and CEO of INOVUES, says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. “They account for up to 40 percent of energy consumption and carbon emissions.”

To meet their climate goals, companies within the built environment are making moves to transition to electric systems. This has to be done with energy efficiency in mind, otherwise it will result in grid instability.

"Energy efficiency goes hand in hand with energy transition," he explains. Read more.

Scott Blair, CEO and co-founder of Popable

Walmart and Popable are teaming up just in time for the holiday shopping season. Image courtesy of Popable

With the holidays in full swing, and small businesses looking to gain back revenues lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, Walmart and Houston-based Popable are providing the opportunity to display and sell their products at Walmart can be highly beneficial to recoup profits, and unload new and extra products to a larger audience.

“Going into the holidays the timing is pretty good for a lot of brands looking to move some access inventory that they have loaded up from last year, but this (hopefully with Walmart) will be a year-round thing,” says Popable CEO and co-founder Scott Blair. “The pop-up opportunities we’ve been seeing with brands doing reach outs so far, a lot of them are looking for stuff into January and February too.”

Popable has assisted brands secure qualified spaces, get education and resources, and build community, and connections that are vital to helping small businesses expand their visibility in the marketplace. The platform simultaneously helps retail landlords find qualified retailers from a directory of tens of thousands of brands to fill vacancies and drive traffic to their shopping centers. Read more.

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Walmart and Popable are teaming up just in time for the holiday shopping season. Image courtesy of Popable

Walmart, Houston startup team up to bring small biz products to shelves

holiday shopping teamwork

Thanks to a pop-up shop marketplace platform, small businesses will now have the opportunity to have their goods displayed in one of the country’s largest national retail stores.

Through a strategic partnership between Houston-based Popable and Walmart, local businesses to set up shop for short-term leasing and bring brand new eyes to their products.

“Supporting small businesses has always been a priority for Walmart,” says Darryl Spinks, senior director of retail services for Walmart, in a news release. “We are proud to work with Popable to offer local brands an opportunity to grow inside our stores. This is a great example of our focus on offering services unique to the neighborhoods we serve through our store of the community initiative.”

Popable has assisted brands secure qualified spaces, get education and resources, and build community, and connections that are vital to helping small businesses expand their visibility in the marketplace. The platform simultaneously helps retail landlords find qualified retailers from a directory of tens of thousands of brands to fill vacancies and drive traffic to their shopping centers.

For those small businesses interested, they can be paired with their local participating Walmart to connect and enter into an agreeable temporary leasing agreement by signing up on the platform’s official website. The businesses will set up right in front of the store generally where the customer service areas and salons tend to be. While the partnership isn’t aimed to be a pilot program, Popable will be giving Walmart the chance to infuse some local flavor into the stores from the community.

With the holidays around the corner, and small businesses looking to gain back revenues lost during the COVID-19 pandemic, the opportunity to display and sell their products at Walmart can be highly beneficial to recoup profits, and unload new and extra products to a larger audience.

“Going into the holidays the timing is pretty good for a lot of brands looking to move some access inventory that they have loaded up from last year, but this (hopefully with Walmart) will be a year-round thing,” says Popable CEO and co-founder Scott Blair. “The pop-up opportunities we’ve been seeing with brands doing reach outs so far, a lot of them are looking for stuff into January and February too.”

Scott Blair, CEO and co-founder of Popable, says he hopes to continue the partnership with Walmart. Photo courtesy of Popable

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Houston bio-based materials startup breaks into footwear

cleaner shoes

A more sustainable shoe can’t be built on a single material swap. From the hard plastics hidden inside a heel to the material covering a sneaker’s upper, footwear is a collection of components—and each presents a different challenge for companies trying to move away from conventional, petroleum-based materials.

Houston-based Rheom Materials wants to change that equation. The biomaterials company has launched a sustainable footwear platform featuring two of its bio-based alternatives: Benree, a biodegradable plastic designed for hard internal components, and ShoraiDura, a durable leather alternative for footwear uppers.

“A shoe is not one material; it is multiple parts working together as a system. Substituting a single material has never moved the needle,” Rheom founder and CEO Zimri Hinshaw said in a news release. “Rheom wants to make it easier for brands to make a positive impact. By providing an assortment of bio-based materials, brands can change the system, not just a swatch of it.”

Benree is Rheom’s alternative to conventional hard plastics used in footwear construction. The company says it is a 100 percent USDA-certified bio-based, biodegradable material with performance comparable to acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), a widely used engineering plastic.

The material has passed SATRA testing for high-heel applications with Bared Footwear, an Australian footwear brand.

“At Bared, we're constantly on a journey to remove plastic from our shoes. At the same time, our brand won't compromise on quality for the end customer,” Millie Richards, Bared’s head of sustainability, added in the release. “From samples and testing, Rheom has proven to be solving both of those problems for us. We look forward to seeing how they develop as a company and would love to use them in our shoes.”

Rheom says it is also exploring Benree for additional internal components, including toe puffs and heel counters.

Rheom's Benree material was used for a high-heel prototype. Photo courtesy Rheom Materials

The company’s ShoraiDura material addresses another major part of shoe construction: the upper, which must withstand repeated flexing, friction and wear while maintaining its appearance.

Containing about 80 percent bio-based content, ShoraiDura is engineered as a durable leather alternative for footwear. Rheom says the material’s molecular structure is designed to deliver the strength and durability required for demanding applications.

To demonstrate how the material could be used in finished products, Rheom worked with a Los Angeles-based footwear manufacturer to create two prototypes: an athletic sneaker and a textured skater shoe, both featuring ShoraiDura uppers.

The two offerings reflect the company’s broader strategy. Rather than asking brands to evaluate a single material in isolation, Rheom is positioning its platform as a way to explore alternatives across different parts of footwear construction.

The next step is broader industry adoption. Benree’s testing with Bared Footwear and ShoraiDura’s footwear prototypes offer early examples of how the materials could be applied, while commercial use will depend on manufacturers’ evaluations and product-development decisions.

Rheom Materials is a Houston-based biomaterials company developing bio-based alternatives to petrochemical plastics. Its product portfolio includes Shorai, a leather alternative, and Benree, a hard plastic alternative.

The company debuted Shorai at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo in 2025 and showed a bio-based "leather" collection in Milan earlier this year. Read more here.

Houston's Rice University named the No. 1 best Texas college for 2027

We're No. 1

With early application season in full swing, a local university is racking up accolades on a new list of the 10 best Texas colleges for 2027.

Rice University topped the list as the No. 1 best university in Texas in WalletHub's annual "College & University Rankings" report, showing Houston students don't have to travel out of state to earn a top-notch degree.

WalletHub analyzed 738 colleges and universities in the U.S. using 30 relevant metrics, including factors like student-faculty ratios, graduation rates, and many more. Universities were ranked nationally, regionally, and across seven key dimensions: student selectivity; cost and financing; faculty resources; campus safety; campus experience; educational outcomes; and career outcomes.

Rice also ranked No. 2 in the regional comparison of best universities in the South, and appeared No. 11 nationwide.

Across the seven main categories, the university performed best for its faculty resources (No. 4), education outcomes (No. 11), and student selectivity (No. 16), and earned top-100 rankings for its career outcomes (No. 28) and campus experience (No. 58).

Rice only lagged behind in the national rankings for campus safety (No. 632) and cost and financing (No. 666), but neither category swayed the university's top-performing overall position.

Meanwhile, the University of Houston ranked 75th regionally and 339th nationally. UH's cost and financing rank among the top 200 nationally, landing 177th, and it ranked 284th for its campus safety.This is how the report ranked UH in the five remaining categories out of all 738 schools:
  • No. 306 – Career outcomes
  • No. 324 – Student selectivity
  • No. 343 – Education outcomes
  • No. 383 – Campus experience
  • No. 715 – Faculty resources
Four more local schools ranked among the best universities in the South: Houston Christian University (No. 204), Prairie View A&M University (No. 245), University of Houston-Downtown (No. 251), and Texas Southern University (No. 254).The Houston-area universities, including their graduate and online programs, have earned heaps of national and worldwide praise this year from prestigious educational reviewing authorities U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review. Rice University also topped Niche's list of the best Texas universities for 2027.

These are WalletHub's top 10 best colleges and universities in Texas for 2027:

  • No. 1 – Rice University
  • No. 2 – Trinity University
  • No. 3 – The University of Texas at Austin
  • No. 4 – Texas A&M University-College Station
  • No. 5 – Southwestern University
  • No. 6 – University of Dallas
  • No. 7 – Austin College
  • No. 8 – Texas Christian University
  • No. 9 – LeTourneau University
  • No. 10 – The University of Texas at Dallas
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This article first appeared on CultureMap.com.

UH expands Medical Center footprint with $77M research facility

breaking ground

The University of Houston broke ground on a brand new $77.5 million Medical Research Building last week that will host clinical trials and a virtual reality behavioral health suite, among other laboratories. Designed by SmithGroup, it will be the second building on the UH Medical Center campus after the Fertitta College of Medicine opened in 2022.

“The Medical Research Building was designed to foster collaboration and discovery while creating a welcoming environment for students, researchers and the community,” Kalman Nagy, higher education studio design leader for SmithGroup, said in a news release. “As the second building on the University of Houston’s medical campus, we wanted to create a strong connection to the College of Medicine and the surrounding woodlands, with outdoor terraces, shared learning spaces and natural views that inspire interaction and innovation.”

Located just behind the Fertitta building at 5150 Medical Service Drive, the 57,000-square-foot building will house wet laboratories, computational research spaces and specialized facilities for clinical research. The virtual reality behavioral health suite will use immersive technology to deliver care through manufactured audio and visual environments. It’s part of the college’s vision for developing new medical advancements in the heart of Houston’s medical community. The groundbreaking comes on the heels of the launch of the university's cross-disciplinary academic venture, UH Health, this summer.

“This groundbreaking marks an important next step in the growth of the Fertitta College of Medicine and UH Health,” Dr. Jonathan McCullers, vice president for health affairs at UH, added in the release. “We are building the research capacity to match our ambitions—bringing together scientists, physicians and experts from across the University to accelerate discovery and turn promising ideas into solutions that improve people’s lives.”

UH’s journey to establish a significant presence alongside the University of Texas and Baylor in the Medical Center started in 2009 when it became an official full institutional member. The university launched its plans for the Fertitta building in 2013, and is pursuing Health Science Center designation from the Texas Legislature in the next year’s session.

“The research that will take place here will directly benefit our community,” UH President Renu Khator added. “Diseases do not recognize disciplinary silos, and neither should our research. This building will bring together experts from across UH to break down those barriers, work across disciplines and tackle some of our most complex health challenges.”

The building is slated to open in 2028.

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