Dallas coworking company to open its first location in Houston

new to hou

Fuse Workspace is the latest coworking concept for the west side of town. Photo courtesy of Fuse

Dallas-based Fuse Workspace is gearing up to open the first of what could be several coworking spaces in the Houston area as various coworking providers ramp up their Bayou City presence.

Fuse will unveil its first Houston location March 2 at CityCentre, a 47-acre, mixed-use development on the former site of Town & Country Mall in the Memorial City district. The grand opening is set for April 30.

Included in the 29,000-square-foot Fuse space, at 12848 Queensbury Ln., will be Houston's first showroom for Varidesk, a Coppell-based provider of standing desks and other office equipment.

John Herring, brand manager and director of operations at Fuse, says Houston, Austin, and Dallas are the company's target markets. A Fuse space is scheduled to open in July in the Austin suburb of Bee Cave.

"We love Houston and see a great future for our brand here, with multiple locations," Herring tells InnovationMap. "We don't have definitive plans to announce yet, but we have several strategic locations in the area that on our list."

Fuse is a division of DPG Partners LLC, a developer, owner, and operator of coworking spaces in Texas, as well as Hilton and Marriott hotels in Texas and Arkansas.

Fuse Workspace is the latest coworking concept for the west side of town. Photo courtesy of Fuse

The Fuse location at CityCentre will feature about 23,000 square feet of Class A office space, along with about 6,000 square feet of outdoor space. Highlights include:

  • 90 private offices
  • Three specialty suites, including one already leased by Varidesk
  • Four terraces
  • Seven conference rooms, including a podcast studio
  • Event space accommodating up to 100 people

"Our goal is to create an outstanding experience in the office through décor, amenities, programming, conference space, and our concierge staff," Herring says.

Fuse is joining a number of coworking providers that have set up shop in and around Memorial City. For instance, Life Time Work, affiliated with a nearby Life Time Fitness gym, opened last year at City Centre. Memorial City also is home to The Cannon, a 120,000-square-foot coworking campus.

Commercial real estate services provider JLL predicts 30 percent of the U.S. office market will be "flexible" space, such as coworking setups, by 2030. That compares with less than 5 percent in early 2019.

In the Houston market, 1.9 percent of office space was considered "flexible" in early 2019, according to JLL, versus 2.8 percent in Austin and 1.7 percent in Dallas.

"Our research, and our conversations with corporate executives across the globe, indicate that flexible work is not just a passing trend — it's woven into the fabric of the future of work," Scott Homa, senior vice president and director of U.S. office research at JLL, said in a 2019 release. "Even though some markets are better positioned for rapid growth, this still leaves significant runway for expansion across all U.S. office markets."

An October 2019 report from Yardi Matrix, a provider of real estate data, shows the Houston market with 113 coworking spaces encompassing more than 2.2 million square feet. By comparison, Dallas-Fort Worth had 159 coworking spaces exceeding 3.5 million total square feet, and Austin had 47 spaces surpassing 1.2 million total square feet.

"The penetration of coworking is highest in markets with new-market economies and tight vacancy rates," the Yardi Matrix report states.

According to JLL, the office vacancy rate in the Houston market stood at 22.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2019. But office occupancy is improving, according to a JLL report, as more than 1.85 million square feet of space was absorbed in the Houston market during the fourth quarter of 2019. For Houston, that marked a 20-year high for positive net absorption in a single quarter, the report states.
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Baylor scientist lands $2M grant to explore links between viruses and Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s research

A Baylor College of Medicine scientist will begin exploring the possible link between Alzheimer’s disease and viral infections thanks to a $2 million grant awarded in March.

Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa is an assistant professor of pathology & immunology at Baylor and a principal investigator at Texas Children’s Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI). He hypothesizes that Alzheimer’s may have some link to previous viral infections contracted by the patient. To study this intriguing possibility, the American Brain Foundation has gifted him the Cure One, Cure Many award in neuroinflammation.

“It is an honor to receive this support from the Cure One, Cure Many Award. Viral infections are emerging as a major, underappreciated driver of Alzheimer's disease, and this award will allow our team to conduct the most comprehensive screen of viral exposures and host genetics in Alzheimer's to date, spanning over a million individuals,” Dhindsa said in a news release. “Our goal is to identify which viruses matter most, why some people are more vulnerable than others, and ultimately move the field closer to new therapeutic strategies for patients.”

Roughly 150 million people worldwide will suffer from Alzheimer’s by 2050, making it the most common cause of dementia in the world. Despite this, scientists are still at a loss as to what exactly causes it.

Dhindsa’s research is part of a new range of theories that certain viral infections may trigger Alzheimer’s. His team will take a two-fold approach. First, they will analyze the medical records of more than a million individuals looking for patterns. Second, they will analyze viral DNA in stem cell-derived brain cells to see how the infections could contribute to neurological decay. The scale of the genomic data gathering is unprecedented and may highlight a link that traditional studies have missed.

Also joining the project are Dr. Caleb Lareau of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dr. Artem Babaian of the University of Toronto. Should a link be found, it would open the door to using anti-virals to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s.

Tesla Robotaxi service officially launches in Houston and Dallas

Future of the Roads

Tesla’s Robotaxi service has taken to the streets of Houston. In a brief statement Saturday, April 18 on its X social media account, Tesla Robotaxi says the autonomous rideshare service just launched in Texas’ two biggest metro areas — Houston and Dallas.

“Try Tesla Robotaxi in Dallas & Houston!” Tesla CEO Elon Musk says in a reposting on X of the Robotaxi announcement.

One of Robotaxi’s competitors, Alphabet-owned Waymo, beat the Tesla service to the Dallas, Houston, and Austin markets. Another competitor, Amazon-owned Zoox, has Dallas flagged for its autonomous rideshare service.

Robotaxi previously kicked off in Austin, where Tesla is based and manufactures electric vehicles, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Nearly 50 Robotaxis operate in Austin, where the service’s inaugural rides happened last year, and more than 500 in the San Francisco area.

Of the three rides logged in a 31-square-mile area in Dallas as of Monday morning, the average fare was $7.96 and the average trip was 3.5 miles, according to an online tracker of autonomous rideshare services. The tracker showed only one Robotaxi was on the roads in Dallas.

As of Monday morning, a 25-square-mile area in Houston had two Robotaxis on the road, according to the online tracker. The average fare for five recorded rides was $11.34 and the average trip was six miles.

“We want Robotaxi pricing to be simple and easy for you to understand,” according to the Robotaxi website. “Initially, as part of our introductory program, we will charge a simple, affordable rate plus applicable taxes and fees for all rides within the available service area.”

The tracker shows the Robotaxi in Dallas did not have a human aboard to monitor each trip, and only one of Houston’s two Robotaxis did not have a human monitor in the driver’s seat.

For now, all passengers ride in Tesla Model Y cars. Robotaxi operates from 6 am-2 am daily.

To use the service, you first must download the Robotaxi app, which works only on iPhones.

Robotaxi lets you stream music and adjust climate settings and seat positioning from the Robotaxi app or the vehicle’s touchscreen. Climate and media settings are stored in your Robotaxi profile and automatically transfer from one vehicle to another. If you own a Tesla, certain profile settings and media preferences are available in your own car as well as in a Robotaxi.

In January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Musk said a “widespread” network of driverless rideshare vehicles would be operating in the U.S. by the end of this year, CNBC reported.

---

This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Houston VC funding surged nearly 50% in Q1 2026, report says

VC victories

First-quarter venture capital funding for Houston-area startups climbed nearly 50 percent compared to the same time last year, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

In Q1 2026, Houston-area startups raised $532.3 million, a 49 percent jump from $320.2 million in Q1 2025, according to the PitchBook-NVCA Venture Monitor.

However, the Q1 total fell 23 percent from the $671.05 million raised in Q4 2025.

Among the first-quarter funding highlights in Houston were:

  • Utility Global, which focuses on industrial decarbonization, announced a first close of $100 million for its Series D round.
  • Sage Geosystems raised a $97 million Series B round to support its geothermal energy storage technology.

Those funding rounds underscore Houston’s evolution as a magnet for VC in the energy sector.

“Today, the energy sector is increasingly extending into the startup economy as venture capital flows into companies developing the technologies that will shape the future of global energy,” the Greater Houston Partnership says.

The energy industry accounted for nearly 40 percent of Houston-area VC funding last year, according to market research and lead generation service Growth List.

Adding to Houston’s stature in VC for energy startups are investors like Chevron Technology Ventures, the investment arm of Houston-based oil and gas giant Chevron; Goose Capital; Mercury Fund; and Quantum Energy Partners.

View All Listings