Roundup: Houston startups announce new partnerships, crowdfunding campaigns, and more

Short stories

A Houston tech startup launches a crowdfunding campaign — and more local innovation news. Photo courtesy of The Postage

The Houston innovation ecosystem has been bursting at the seams with news from innovative tech companies and disruptive Houston startups as we fly through the final quarter of 2021.

In this roundup of short stories within Houston innovation, a Texas energy tech company gets selected for a prestigious program, a med device company heads to clinical trials, a startup launches a crowdfunding campaign, and more.

The Postage launches crowdfunding campaign

The Postage is looking for financial support with its new campaign. Photo courtesy of The Postage

The Postage, a Houston-based, full-service digital platform to help organize affairs to make after-life planning a smoother process for families, has announced the launch of a crowdfunding campaign through MicroVentures.

"This crowdfunding offering is selling crowd notes to raise maximum offering proceeds of $500,000 with a minimum investment of $100," according to a news release. "We currently anticipate closing this offering on April 4, 2022."

More information on this offering can be found at: https://invest.microventures.com/offerings/the-postage.

Emily Cisek co-founded the company after she experienced an overwhelming experience following a death in her family.

"I just knew there had to be a better way, and that's why I started The Postage," Cisek says on an episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. "My background had historically been in bringing offline businesses online, and I started doing some research on how I could make this space better. At the time, there really wasn't anything out there."

Texas company selected for Chevron Technology Ventures Catalyst Program

This Texas company has joined CTV's startup program. Photo via Getty Images

SeebeckCell Technologies, while based in Arlington, Texas, is no stranger to the Houston innovation ecosystem. The startup was in the first class of the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, participated in the MassChallenge Texas Houston cohort, and is a member at Greentown Houston. The company announced earlier this month a new Houston association as it was invited to participate in the Chevron Technology Ventures Catalyst Program to develop further their technology platform designed to recover industrial waste heat energy, increasing energy consumption efficiency, and eliminating battery replacement in IoT applications, according to a news release.

"SeebeckCell is excited to be supported by Chevron, a technology leader in the energy market," says Ali Farzbod, co-founder and CEO of Seebeckcell Technologies, in the release. "This is inspiring hope in the scientific community as we see Chevron continue to back commercializing academically developed technologies that provide potential solutions for addressing climate change. Through collaboration and partnership, we're able to grow our startup and we're grateful for participating in the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator that helped connect us with Chevron."

SeebeckCell Technologies is helping petroleum and gas industries and emerging markets solve energy waste with an innovative liquid based thermoelectric generator.

VenoStent heads to clinical trials

VenoStent

VenoStent has reached the clinical trials stage. Photo via venostent.com

VenoStent Inc. has announced successful enrollment in its initial feasibility clinical trial. The med device startup is a tissue engineering company that's developing smart polymer wraps to transform the efficacy of the vascular surgery industry, which sees five million operations each year.

"We are very pleased to announce that we have successfully enrolled twenty end-stage renal disease patients in our initial feasibility study taking place in Asuncion, Paraguay," says Tim Boire, CEO., in a news release "After years of development, we are confident that our bioabsorbable wrap technology can have a positive impact on the lives of patients that require hemodialysis to sustain life. This is a major milestone toward our mission to improve the quality and length of life for end-stage renal disease patients, as well as others needing vascular surgery."

VenoStent is an alum of TMC Innovation's accelerator and has been named a most promising company by Rice Alliance.

Cart.com announces latest partnership

Cart.com has a new partner, which has increased access to tools for its clients. Photo via cart.com

Houston-based Cart.com, an end-to-end ecommerce services provider and Amazon competitor, has announced yet another new partnership. The company has teamed up with Extend, which provides modern extended warranties and product protection plans. The partnership means that Cart.com merchants have access to a new revenue stream and new ways to increase customer satisfaction by leveraging Extend's platform and technology-enabled proprietary insurance stack.

"Like Cart.com, Extend is fixing the fractured ecommerce ecosystem by providing a truly innovative, effortless, and easy-to-understand service for both merchants and their customers," says Omair Tariq, Cart.com co-founder and CEO, in a news release. "By creating seamless solutions to serve brands, we empower them to focus completely on their customers. The partnership with Extend fits squarely in this view; anyone who has wrangled with extended warranty claims in the past understands the friction involved. Extend is rewriting the rules for product protection and customer service while Cart.com takes care of everything from the factory floor to the customer door. Through this partnership with Extend, we're now seamlessly covering the post-purchase experience too."

Extend launched in 2019 — a time when only the top 1 percent of merchants could offer extended warranties and protection plans to help their customers, according to the release. Now, Extend is valued at $1.6 billion, has raised over $315 million in venture capital, is on track to sell more than three million protection plans in 2021.

"The relationship between an ecommerce company and its customer doesn't end with the sale," says Woodrow Levin, co-founder and CEO of Extend, in the release. "Our technology will allow Cart.com's clients to continue to engage customers after they make a purchase, unlocking opportunities to increase brand loyalty, open new revenue channels, and create lasting customer relationships. Together, we're empowering clients to deliver a better experience for customers and we are excited to continue to build on that vision."

Campus Concierge rebrands to Clutch with revamped website

A Houston startup has just flipped a switch. Image via thatsclutch.com

Campus Concierge is now Clutch, the Houston-based startup announced on its Facebook page last month. The new name also came with a revamped website.

Madison Long and Simone May had the idea for the company when they were undergraduate students at Purdue University and their only option for scoping out basic services — like getting their hair done or hiring a DJ for an event or a photographer for graduation photos — was to ask around among older students. Launched earlier this year, the platform is a marketplace to connect students who have skills or services with potential clients in a safe way. The company, which was a member of DivInc's inaugural Houston accelerator, launched on three college campuses this year — Texas Southern University, Rice University, and Prairie View A&M.

"Building community is so critical given the fact that it's nerve-wracking any time to ask someone for help — especially now that you are coming back to school after a year of being virtual," Long, CEO and co-founder of Clutch, previously told InnovationMap.

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Houston lab explores how AI bots can help the elderly

AI for aging

The University of Houston’s Empathetic Lifespan AI & Robotics for Aging (ELARA) Lab is currently conducting research into how AI bots may be able to help the elderly live more social and independent lives through several ongoing initiatives.

The lab officially launched last month as part of the Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture & Design under the leadership of Assistant Professor Chorong Park. Part of the lab’s mission is tackling ongoing problems with aging, such as dealing with disabilities and social isolation. Researchers’ current work is focused on designing a new AI companion bot specifically tailored to the needs of older people.

“We need to take all the needs of older adults seriously,” Park said in a news release. “They won't use the robot if they don't feel at ease or if they feel they are being constantly watched.”

The field testing of new AI bots in this population hopes to overcome several traditional obstacles in technology use among the elderly. A study by Park shows that many older people have a fear of overt surveillance when using advanced AI. There is also ageism to consider. Most new technologies are designed with younger and employed buyers in mind, not retirees who may need help remembering daily tasks or accessing important information.

“The more older adults are excluded from technology development, the worse those technology gaps will become,” Park said. “AI and the majority of technologies are created for younger people, so my research method integrates older adults directly into the design process.”

ELARA recently collaborated with the Mamie George Community Center in Richmond, Texas, to track seniors’ response to desktop AI bots like Emo and Cupboo. Researchers also had participants use air-dry modeling clay to create their ideal robotic companion.

While the eventual AI bot may be able to help the elderly feel less isolated and more supported, there are concerns to consider. A study published in the Asian Journal of Psychology charted the development of delusional thinking in a 72-year-old woman who became convinced the empathic-response bot was in love with her. The rise of “AI psychosis” has the potential to exacerbate mental health problems, particularly in socially isolated people, which a quarter of Americans over the age of 65 are.

ELARA’s research is focused on creating “pet-like” AI models with enhanced trust cues. If it can overcome the dangers of socially isolated people relying on AI for companionship, it could be a big step forward for independent aging.

SpaceX IPO set to be biggest ever and could make Elon Musk a trillionaire

IPO News

SpaceX says it plans to raise up to $75 billion when it goes public this month, setting the stage for the largest-ever stock market debut and putting Elon Musk on course to becoming the world's first trillionaire.

The company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., said Wednesday it will sell 555.6 million shares at $135 a piece in an initial public offering. The estimated proceeds would easily top the $26 billion raised by oil giant Saudi Aramco in 2019. The offering would also give SpaceX a market value of $1.77 trillion. Only six companies in the S&P 500 are currently worth more, with Nvidia tops at $5.2 trillion.

Besides the size of the offering and the expected proceeds, SpaceX's amended prospectus updates details about how much control of the company Musk will have. As SpaceX's CEO, chief technical officer and chairman, Musk's voting power will come primarily through his ownership of 5.22 billion Class B shares, which give the holder 10 votes for every share held. According to the filing, Musk would have 82.4% of the voting power in the company.

Forbes currently values Musk's net worth at $826 billion and his stake in SpaceX at $542 billion. The estimated value of his SpaceX holdings was based on an overall value for the company of $1.25 trillion. Based on those numbers, a $1.77 trillion valuation for SpaceX would boost Musk's net worth by $223 billion, making him a trillionaire. However, much of Musk's worth is in stock that he has yet to cash in.

Even as it makes a bid for a blockbuster market debut, SpaceX is currently losing billions of dollars a year. The filing shows that the company lost $2.6 billion from operations last year on $18.7 billion in revenue, and the losses kept piling up at the start of this year, too.

Fantastical plans

Time will tell how SpaceX fares on the market. Musk's plans for the company are as fantastical as the money he hopes raise in the sale.

Colorful, even frightening in parts, the IPO document strikes a contrast with the typically dry, technical prose in IPO documents, detailing plans to use proceeds from the sale to help put men on the moon again and perhaps even Mars. In one section, it talks of a need to build "a permanent human colony" on the red planet with "at least one million inhabitants" as existential threats loom that could consign man to "the same fate as the dinosaurs."

Musk has almost equally ambitious plans for his other publicly traded company, Tesla. His goal is to transform the maker of electric vehicles into a producer of robotaxis and humanoid robots. Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a research note that he expects Tesla and SpaceX to merge next year.

AI plays a key role

Key to the success of both companies — and any merged entity — is artificial intelligence. In its IPO filing, SpaceX says it sees potential revenue from AI of up to $26.5 trillion. But that depends on another lofty Musk ambition — putting data centers in space, which is not technologically possible at the moment.

Transforming his space company into a primarily AI-focused company will be a challenge for Musk, who started xAI in 2023 with 11 other co-founders who have all since left. Some were recruited away by rivals.

Its main AI product, the chatbot Grok, is "less impressive than anything that we see from any other major player in the space, whether that's OpenAI, or Anthropic, or (Google's) Gemini," said IDC analyst Arnal Dayaratna.

Dayaratna said that doesn't mean SpaceX doesn't have potential as a major AI player, thanks in part to its computing partnership with Anthropic and Musk's recent deal that gave SpaceX the rights to buy AI coding tool Cursor for $60 billion later this year. Folding in Cursor's capabilities would give SpaceX access to the coveted business customers now using Anthropic's Claude or OpenAI's ChatGPT.

SpaceX plans to use the net proceeds from the IPO to fund the expansion of infrastructure for its AI and rocket businesses, and to beef up the constellation of satellites that power Starlink Mobile, among other investments.

The company plans to list on the Nasdaq under the symbol "SPCX" and could begin trading as soon as the end of next week.

And SpaceX isn't the only colossal market debut investors are now bracing for. Earlier this week, Anthropic submitted a confidential filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to officially start its own IPO clock.

OpenAI has not yet reported filing the initial SEC paperwork, but an IPO from the ChatGPT maker is widely expected.

"This listing represents the first major test for public markets after years of muted IPO activity with SpaceX paving the way for AI giants Anthropic and OpenAI to follow soon after," Ives wrote.

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Associated Press Technology Writer Matt O'Brien contributed.

New UH survey reveals concerns over AI data center growth in Houston

data findings

A new report out of the University of Houston shows that area residents remain wary of the long-term effects of operating data centers.

The recent survey from the University of Houston’s latest SPACE City Panel, conducted by the Center for Public Policy at the Hobby School of Public Affairs, shows that while 85 percent of Houston-area residents use AI, nearly 63 percent oppose the construction of AI data centers within 1 mile of their homes.

Respondents’ concerns centered around data centers’ high energy demand and the area’s power grid reliability. According to the survey, 32 percent of residents who oppose local data center projects would be more likely to support the centers if they relied on renewable energy over fossil fuels.

“Respondents understand that AI can bring economic and educational benefits, but they are also concerned about the physical infrastructure needed to fuel AI, especially data centers,” Soran Mohtadi, post-doctoral fellow at the Hobby School and a researcher on the report, said in a news release. “This physical infrastructure demands more electricity and water, leading to environmental impacts.”

Experts estimate that 6.5 gigawatts of data center capacity will be added to the Texas grid by 2030. And Houston’s data center capacity is predicted to more than double by 2028.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas also projects electricity demand could reach 218 gigawatts by 2031, which would be more than double the record peak set in August 2023. Data centers are expected to account for 86 gigawatts of that new demand.

Survey respondents also said they are concerned about the state's future water supply, given the large amounts of water that data centers need to stay cool.

In terms of who’s responsible for that issue, 57.6 percent of respondents said they put the onus on Texas lawmakers, while 31.5 percent say tech companies should be responsible.

Additionally, more than 75 percent of respondents believed that data center developers and technology companies—not residents—should bear the cost of infrastructure upgrades to support data centers.

“Every decision legislators make has implications on residents’ everyday lives and local infrastructure now and in the future,” Maria P. Perez Arguelles, lead researcher on the report and research assistant professor at the Hobby School, added in the news release. “This issue is going to become more important in years to come, so this is just the beginning.”

Read the full report here.

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