Houston health tech company raises $8M, former WeWork exec has a new gig, UH programs recognized, and more innovation news

Short stories

UH's business school has been recognized for innovation and entrepreneurship. Photo via bauerticker.uh.edu

Hitting headlines this month are innovation news stories from sustainability and education to funding and startup competitions.

In this innovation news roundup, two health-focused startups raise money, the University of Houston earns two pats on the back, a Houston-based former WeWork exec joined the C-suite of a sustainable clothing company, and more.

BrainCheck closes $8 million series A round

BrainCheck has received funding to grow its cognitive assessment platform. Photo via braincheck.com

Houston-based BrainCheck, a cognitive health tech platform closed its $8 million series A funding round. Austin-based S3 Ventures and Chicago-based Tensility Venture Partners co-led the round, and Austin-based True Wealth Ventures and Kansas-based Nueterra Capital also contributed to the round.

BrainCheck's digital platform allows physicians to better assess cognitive function in their patients. The new funds will be used for research and development, including customizing the platform's algorithm for an enhanced patient experience, according to a news release.

"Cognitive healthcare should be an end-to-end solution where problems can be assessed early, and results shared between patients and physicians," says Dr. Yael Katz, co-founder and CEO of BrainCheck, in the release. "By analyzing multiple forms of data, BrainCheck helps physicians create and fine tune personalized interventions. This not only improves outcomes for current patients, but is invaluable to developing management and treatment strategies for future generations."

Former WeWork exec Emily Keeton joins C-suite of a sustainable clothing startup

Goodfair has created a digital thrifting platform. Photo via goodfair.com

After a little over two years at WeWork in leadership positions, Emily Keeton has left the coworking space company to join a Houston startup. Keeton, who was among the founders of Station Houston, is now the chief operating officer at Goodfair, a direct-to-consumer thrift platform based in Houston.

"The rise of fast fashion is contributing to major environmental change," she tells InnovationMap. "Right now, the average American buys 68 new garments a year and wears each one only 7 times. Clothing production is responsible for over 20 percent of all industrial water pollution."

Keeton says she was connected with Goodfair's CEO, Topper Luciani, through the company's lead investor, Paul Bricault of California-based Amplify. Luciani just moved to Houston, and the company also has a warehouse here.

Goodfair sells bundles of "pre-loved" clothes based on size and category at a low price point.

"You know you'll get a medium flannel shirt, but you don't know exactly what color. If you don't like it, you can get a new order for the cost of shipping only," Keeton says. "We have created an entirely new model for this industry, which is an over $14 billion market."

NurseDash raises bridge round as the startup braces for growth

Houston-based NurseDash is the Uber of staffing nursing shifts in medical facilities. Photo via nursedash.com

A growing Houston startup has received bridge funding ahead of opening a larger round. NurseDash, a digital staffing tool for nurses and medical facilities, has received $500,000 from East Coast-based SEI Ventures.

The corporate-backed fund has contributed greatly to higher education institutions, like Capella University, which has a large nursing program.

"Some of the ways we think we can help NurseDash accelerate their growth is getting getting word out to Capella's tens of thousands of alumni and hundreds of employer partners to make sure they are aware of the advantages of the platform, and potentially organizing an educational partnership as well," Taylor Chapman, Houston native and principal at SEI Ventures, tells InnovationMap.

NurseDash, which launched in 2017, now has a presence in 80 facilities on the platform and over 1,000 clinician users in Houston, Austin, and Northeast Ohio.

"We are excited to have SEI join us as a strategic investor and the opportunity that it brings for us to provide enhanced educational opportunities to our clinicians as well as greater exposure the wonderfully talented group that comprises the alumni and nursing students of Cappella University," says CEO and Co-founder Jake Kohl in an email.

University of Houston programs receive recognition

The University of Houston's business school has been recognized for two of its programs. Photo courtesy of University of Houston

The University of Houston's business school has two more feathers to add to its cap.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek named the MBA program at the C. T. Bauer College of Business as among the world's best programs for entrepreneurs. The program tied for ninth in the B- category out of 126 programs surveyed.

"Bauer students indeed reflect the values of our beloved Houston," Professional Programs Associate Dean Leiser Silva says in a news release. "Like our city, they have grit, they are resilient, and they are the bearers of an unparalleled ingenuity. It is in their character to assume calculated risks and be entrepreneurs."

Meanwhile, Bauer's Stimulating Urban Renewal through Entrepreneurship received the 2019 Award of Excellence for Innovation + Talent at the recent University Economic Development Association annual summit. The program creates a partnership between UH students and local entrepreneurs and area business leaders.

"At the heart of the program is experiential learning for our students, along with a commitment to service and civic engagement," says SURE™ founder and director Saleha Khumawala, in a news release.

Capital Factory seeks Texas companies for artificial intelligence challenge

Capital Factory is looking for AI companies to compete for $100,000. Getty Images

Austin-based Capital Factory, which has a statewide presence, is looking for startups with artificial intelligence technologies.

The $100,000 Artificial Intelligence Challenge is asking companies to submit their solutions to four key challenges decided by the Army Artificial Intelligence Task Force. The four challenges are: Intelligence support for long-range precision, automated threat recognition for the next-generation combat vehicle, human resources and talent management, and predictive maintenance for military assets.

The competition will conclude on November 12th, at Capital Factory's Defense Innovation Summit. Five technology finalists will be judged by a panel, and one will receive a $100,000 investment that day. The deadline to apply online is October 21.

Work & Mother announces new location

Houston-based Work & Mother is rethinking how new mothers pump in the office. Courtesy of Work & Mother

Houston startup Work & Mother, which runs lactation centers for new moms returning to work, has another location opening. Brookfield Properties announced that Work & Mother has signed a lease for a 949-square-foot space at Three Allen Center at 333 Clay St. in downtown Houston with an expectation top open next summer.

"We are thrilled to partner with Brookfield Properties on this project. We've found that companies aren't equipped to fully address such a private and intimate issue as pumping breast milk in the office," says Abbey Donnell, founder and CEO, in a news release. "It doesn't make sense for every company in a large office tower to take this on individually. Work & Mother is a better economic option for companies in that they reduce their legal risks and create a better working environment, preserving their own office space for their core business."

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Over $1.4M in prizes awarded at Rice University's student startup competition

RBPC 2021

In its 21st year, the Rice Business Plan Competition hosted 54 student-founded startups from all over the world — its largest batch of companies to date — and doled out over $1.4 million in cash and investment prizes at the week-long virtual competition.

RBPC, which is put on by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, took place Tuesday, April 6, to Friday, April 9 this year. Just like 2020, RBPC was virtually held. The competition announced the 54 participating startups last month, and coordinated the annual elevator pitches, a semi-finals round, wildcard round and live final pitches. The contestants also received virtual networking and mentoring.

Earlier this week, Rice Alliance announced the seven student-led startups that then competed in the finals. From this pack, the judges awarded the top prizes. Here's how the finalists placed and what won:

SwiftSku from Auburn University, point of sales technology for convenience stores that allows for real time analytics, won first place and claimed the $350,000 grand prize from Goose Capital. The company also won the $50,000 Business Angel Minority Association Prize, the $500 Best Digital Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, and the $500 Third Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $401,000. The company also won the CFO Consulting Prize, a $25,000 in-kind award.
AgZen from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a pesticide alternative spray and formulation technology company, won the second place $100,000 investment prize (awarded by Finger Interests, Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak, and Tracy Druce). The startup also won a $300,000 Owl Investment Prize, the $100,000 Houston Angel Network Prize, the $500 Best Energy Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, and the $1,500 Third Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $502,000. The company also won the $30,000 in-kind Polsinelli Energy Prize.
FibreCoat GmbH from RWTH Aachen University, a startup with patented spinning technology for the production of inexpensive high-performance composite fibers, won the third place $50,000 investment prize (also awarded by Finger Interests, Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak, and Tracy Druce). The company also won the $100,000 TiE Houston Angels Prize and the $500 Best Hard Tech Elevator Pitch Prize from Mercury Fund, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $150,500.
Candelytics from Harvard University, a startup building the digital infrastructure for 3-D data, won the fourth place $5,000 prize.
OYA FEMTECH Apparel from UCLA, an athletic wear company that designs feminine health-focused clothing, won the fifth place $5,000 prize. The company also won the $5,000 Eagle Investors Prize, the $25,000 Urban Capital Network Prize, and the $1,000 Second Place Anbarci Family People's Choice prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $36,000.
LFAnt Medical from McGill University , an innovative and tech-backed STI testing company, won the sixth place $5,000 prize and the $20,000 Johnson and Johnson Innovation Prize, bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $25,000.
SimpL from the University of Pittsburgh, an AI-backed fitness software company, won the seventh place $5,000 prize. The company also won the $25,000 Spirit of Entrepreneurship Prize from the Pearland Economic Development Corp., bringing the company's grand total in cash and investment prizes to $30,000.

Some of the competition's participating startups outside of the seven finalists won monetary and in-kind prizes. Here's a list of those.

Mercury Fund's Elevator Pitch Prizes also included:
- Best Life Science $500 Prize to Blue Comet Medical Solutions from Northwestern University
- Best Consumer $500 Prize to EasyFlo from the University of New Mexico
- Best Overall $1,000 prize to Anthro Energy from Stanford University
The Palo Alto Software Outstanding LivePlan Pitch $3,000 Prize went to LiRA Inc. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
The OFW Law FDA Regulatory Strategy Prize, a $20,000 in-kind award went to Paldara Inc. from Oklahoma State University.
The Silver Fox Mentoring Prize, which included $20,000 in kind prizes to three winners selected Ai-Ris from Texas A&M University, BruxAway from the University of Texas, and Karkinex from Rice University as recipients.
The first, second, and third place winners also each received the legal service prize from Baker Botts for a total of $20,000 in-kind award.
The Courageous Women Entrepreneurship Prize from nCourage — a $50,000 investment prize — went to Shelly Xu Design from Harvard University.
The SWPDC Pediatric Device Prize — usually a $50,000 investment divided its prize to two winners to receive $25,000 each
- Blue Comet Medical Solutions from Northwestern University
- Neurava from Purdue University
TMC Innovation Healthcare Prize awarded a $100,000 investment prize and admission into its accelerator to ArchGuard from Duke University
The Artemis Fund awarded its $100,000 investment prize to Kit Switch from Stanford University

The awards program concluded with a plan to host the 22nd annual awards in 2022 in person.

If you missed the virtual programming, each event was hosted live on YouTube and the videos are now available on the Rice Alliance's page.

Houston health center working with new study that uses app to track long-term COVID-19 effects

pandemic innovation

Aided by technology, medical sleuths at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston are tracking the long-term effects of COVID-19 as part of a national study.

At the heart of the study is an app that allows patients who have shown COVID-19 symptoms and have been tested for COVID-19 to voluntarily share their electronic health records with researchers. The researchers then can monitor long-term symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, depression, and cardiovascular problems.

UTHealth is one of eight U.S. sites for the INSPIRE trial (Innovative Support for Patients with SARS COV-2 Infections Registry). Researchers are recruiting study participants from Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center. They want to expand recruitment to urgent care clinics in the Houston area.

Aside from accessing patients' data through the Hugo Health platform, UTHealth researchers will ask participants to fill out brief follow-up surveys every three months over the course of 18 months. The study complies with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), the federal law that protects patients' information from being disclosed without their knowledge.

"This is a very novel and important study," Dr. Ryan Huebinger, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UTHealth's McGovern Medical School and co-principal investigator of the study, says in a news release.

In a study like this, researchers typically must see a patient in person or at least reach out to them.

"Using this platform is novel because we don't have to schedule additional appointments or ask questions like 'How long were you hospitalized?' – we can automatically see that in their records and survey submissions," Huebinger says.

Mandy Hill, associate professor in the McGovern Medical School's Department of Emergency Medicine and the study's co-principal investigator, says about one-fourth of the people in the study will be local residents who didn't test positive for COVID-19.

"That group will be our control group to be able to compare things like prevalence and risk factors," Huebinger says.

Eligible participants must be at least 18 years old, must have experienced COVID-19 symptoms, and must have been tested for COVID-19 in the past four weeks.

"This is not going to be the last pandemic. The more information we can gather across communities now will give us a leg up when the next pandemic happens," Hill says, "so that we can be more prepared to take steps toward prevention."

Researchers hope to sign up at least 300 study participants in Houston. The entire INSPIRE trial seeks to enroll 4,800 participants nationwide. The study is supposed to end in November 2022.

"There's such great potential for numerous research findings to come out of this study. We could find out if people in Houston are suffering from post-COVID-19 symptoms differently than other parts of the country, whether minorities are more affected by long-hauler symptoms, and if certain interventions work better than others," Hill says.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is financing the study. Aside from UTHealth, academic institutions involved in the research are:

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas
Rush University Medical Center in Chicago
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut
University of Washington in Seattle
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia
University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, San Francisco

5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

what's trending

Editor's note: Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included innovators to know, a guest column on the challenges of space commercialization, a Q&A with an energy innovation leader, and more.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Chris Howard of Softeq, Stephanie Hertzog of Sodexo, and Moody Heard of Buildforce. Courtesy photos

In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — oil and gas, tech development, and construction staffing — recently making headlines in Houston innovation. Continue reading.

Houston, we're trying to fix the problem: Aerospace challenges and future exploration

You've heard "it's not rocket science" throughout your life, but but turns out that aerospace exploration — even in 2021 — is still very hard. Photo via Pexels

If there is anything that goes hand in hand so perfectly, it's Houston and Space. Houston is home to the Johnson Space Center, named after former president Lyndon B. Johnson, and is home to revolutionary space research projects and spaceflight training for both crew members and flight controllers. While it's every kid's dream to become an astronaut, have you ever wondered why rocket science is actually so difficult?

Though the space race of the '70s has been over for some time, the new space race — the race to Mars and the commercialization of space tourism — has just started. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson are spearheading the "Billionaire space race." But even with their billions being put into developing spaceports, NASA rocket partnerships, and planning future Mars missions, rocket science is just as difficult to implement as it was the first time around.

So why, even with billions of dollars at their disposal and many companies pushing for more funding, are scientists and engineers still struggling to make rocket travel an everyday thing? Here are some of the countless reasons why rockets science is insanely difficult, no matter how much money you throw at it. Continue reading.

Houston expert: Hospitals are at the forefront of innovation due to pandemic

As we enter year two of the pandemic, the way hospitals function now and in the future is forever changed. Photo via Getty Images

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a drastic effect on every industry throughout the world. Additionally, we have all experienced multiple changes to our daily routine such as schools implementing virtual and hybrid learning while reconfiguring classrooms to promote social distancing and fitness studios closing off every other cardio machine and bench.

But no industry has had to pivot and innovate more than health care, which has been ground zero for the pandemic.

The pace of innovation for hospitals has been at breakneck speed — from the evolution of new treatment protocols to the need to reconfigure physical spaces to support an influx of patients while also promoting a healing environment during this unprecedented time. Continue reading.

Houston CEO talks augmented reality, diversity, how it will all play a role in the energy transition

Stephanie Hertzog, CEO of Houston-based Sodexo, shares how she's embracing diversity and innovation within the energy industry. Photo courtesy of Sodexo

When Stephanie Hertzog first started her role as CEO of Houston-based Sodexo Energy & Resources North America in the fall of 2019, she was on the road every week visiting some of the facility management company's 100 million customers.

"I actually had a conversation with my assistant in early March, and said, 'Okay, our goal is that by April, I not be on the road every week. Let's try to get this to at least every other week,'" she recalls. Shortly after, the world changed, and by March 10 she halted all travel and was forced to lead her company to innovate in more ways than one.

"When we think about innovation, we often think about technology, but we've had to innovate so much in the last 12 months, in how we do everything," she says. "We've really asked a lot of our teams over the last year in regard to having to rethink how they do things and be innovative and adapt." Continue reading.

Houston startup with life-saving innovation receives $2M grant

Houston-based PolyVascular has invented a polymer-based heart valve for children with congenital heart disease. Photo courtesy of TMC Innovation

A $2 million federal grant will enable Houston-based PolyVascular to launch human trials of what it hails as the first polymer-based heart valve for children.

In conjunction with the grant, Dr. Will Clifton has joined the medical device company as chief operating officer. He will oversee the grant as principal investigator, and will manage the company's operations and R&D. Clifton is president and co-founder of Houston-based Enventure, a medical innovation incubator and education hub. He previously was senior director of medical affairs at Houston-based Procyrion, a clinical-stage medical device company.

PolyVascular's Phase II grant came from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which promotes technological projects. Continue reading.

View All Listings

INNOVATIONMAP EMAILS ARE AWESOME