Houston health tech startup secures $20M series A, NIH grant amid clinical trials

fresh funding

VenoStent has raised additional funding. Image courtesy of VenoStent

A clinical-stage Houston health tech company with a novel therapeutic device has raised venture capital funding and secured a grant from the National Institutes of Health.

VenoStent Inc., which is currently in clinical trials with its bioabsorbable perivascular wrap, announced the closing of a $20 million series A round co-led by Good Growth Capital and IAG Capital Partners. The two Charleston, South Carolina-based firms also led VenoStent's 2023 series A round that closed last year at $16 million.

Additionally, the company secured a $3.6 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II Grant from NIH, which will help fund its multi-center, 200-patient, randomized controlled trial in the United States.

Tim Boire, VenoStent CEO and co-founder, describes 2024 so far as "a momentous year" so far for his company.

"In the span of a few months, we initiated our first clinical sites, enrolled the first patients in our large RCT and closed our Series A with Norwest," Boire says in a news release. "We also received the NIH grant, which enables us to execute our trial with the highest degree of quality and rigor to make it as scientifically robust and impactful to patients as possible.

'Each of these are major company milestones that collectively represent many years of intensive and fruitful R&D and collaboration," he continues. "These recent milestones will propel our company forward to an exciting next phase."

Tim Boire is the CEO and co-founder of VenoStent. Photo via LinkedIn

The company's innovation, the SelfWrap, goes around arteriovenous (AV) access sites at the time of AV fistula creation surgery. The device is intended "to accelerate the usability and increase the durability of the fistula sites for chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients requiring hemodialysis," reads the release, "mimicking the arterial environment in veins, which experience a 10x increase in pressure and flow during AV creation and causes the veins to become unusable in dialysis."

Along with the investment, VenoStent announced two new board observers. Norwest General Partner Dr. Zack Scott and Investor Dr. Ehi Akhirome are bringing their expertise to the growing company.

"Norwest's investment is tremendous validation for VenoStent, and we are thrilled to have both Zack and Ehi joining the company's board," VenoStent COO and Co-Founder Geoffrey Lucks adds in the release. "Zack and Ehi have extensive knowledge in our space, and their added value will match the capital and cache of Norwest dollar-for-dollar."

Last year at the same time VenoStent announced its last funding round, the SelfWrap was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin its U.S. Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) study.

"Over half a million people in the U.S. rely on hemodialysis to survive and require an arteriovenous fistula creation surgery in order to receive the treatment. However, the AV fistula procedure has a one-year failure rate of more than 60 percent, which significantly impacts patients' survival rates and quality of life," Scott says in the release. "VenoStent's groundbreaking technology for AV fistula formation, SelfWrap, has the potential to significantly improve these odds. We look forward to working with the VenoStent team as it proves the efficacy of this breakthrough technology in order to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of CKD patients."

Last summer, Boire told InnovationMap on the Houston Innovators Podcast that he's looking to launch the product in 2026.

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LiNova will use the funds to advance its polymer cathode battery technology. Photo via Getty Images

Houston energy leaders back battery startup's $15.8M series A

Money moves

A California startup that's revolutionizing polymer cathode battery technology has announced its series A round of funding with support from Houston-based energy transition leaders.

LiNova Energy Inc. closed a $15.8 million series A round led by Catalus Capital. Saft, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, which has its US HQ in Houston, and Houston-based Chevron Technology Ventures, also participated in the round with a coalition of other investors.

LiNova will use the funds with its polymer cathode battery to advance the energy storage landscape, according to the company. The company uses a high-energy polymer battery technology that is designed to allow material replacement of the traditional cathode that is made up of cobalt, nickel, and other materials.

The joint development agreement with Saft will have them collaborate to develop the battery technology for commercialization in Saft's key markets.

“We are proud to collaborate with LiNova in scaling up its technology, leveraging the extensive experience of Saft's research teams, our newest prototype lines, and our industrial expertise in battery cell production," Cedric Duclos, CEO of Saft, says in a news release.

CTV recently announced its $500 million Future Energy Fund III, which aims to lead on emerging mobility, energy decentralization, industrial decarbonization, and the growing circular economy. Chevron has promised to spend $10 billion on lower carbon energy investments and projects by 2028.

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Aziz Gilani, managing director at Mercury, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston investor on SaaS investing and cracking product-market fit

Houston innovators podcast episode 230

Aziz Gilani's career in tech dates back to when he'd ride his bike from Clear Lake High School to a local tech organization that was digitizing manuals from mission control. After years working on every side of the equation of software technology, he's in the driver's seat at a local venture capital firm deploying funding into innovative software businesses.

As managing director at Mercury, the firm he's been at since 2008, Gilani looks for promising startups within the software-as-a-service space — everything from cloud computing and data science and beyond.

"Once a year at Mercury, we sit down with our partners and talk about the next investment cycle and the focuses we have for what makes companies stand out," Gilani says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The current software investment cycle is very focused on companies that have truly achieved product-market fit and are showing large customer adoption."



An example of this type of company is Houston-based RepeatMD, which raised a $50 million series A round last November. Mercury's Fund V, which closed at an oversubscribed $160 million, contributed to RepeatMD's round.

"While looking at that investment, it really made me re-calibrate a lot of my thoughts in terms what product-market fit meant," Gilani says. "At RepeatMD, we had customers that were so eager for the service that they were literally buying into products while we were still making them."

Gilani says he's focused on finding more of these high-growth companies to add to Mercury's portfolio amidst what, admittedly, has been a tough time for venture capital. But 2024 has been looking better for those fundraising.

"We've some potential for improvement," Gilani says. "But overall, the environment is constrained, interest rates haven't budged, and we've seen some potential for IPO activity."

Gilani shares more insight into his investment thesis, what areas of tech he's been focused on recently, and how Houston has developed as an ecosystem on the podcast.

Houston-based Sage Geosystems announced the first close of $17 million round led by Chesapeake Energy Corp. Photo via sagegeosystems.com

Houston energy startup closes $17M series A to fund Texas geothermal facility

money moves

A Houston geothermal startup has announced the close of its series A round of funding.

Houston-based Sage Geosystems announced the first close of $17 million round led by Chesapeake Energy Corp. The proceeds aim to fund its first commercial geopressured geothermal system facility, which will be built in Texas in Q4 of 2024. According to the company, the facility will be the first of its kind.

The venture is joined by technology investor Arch Meredith, Helium-3 Ventures and will include support from existing investors Virya, LLC, Nabors Industries Ltd., and Ignis Energy Inc.

“The first close of our Series A funding and our commercial facility are significant milestones in our mission to make geopressured geothermal system technologies a reality,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, says in a news release. “The success of our GGS technologies is not only critical to Sage Geosystems becoming post-revenue, but it is an essential step in accelerating the development of this proprietary geothermal baseload approach.

"This progress would not be possible without the ongoing support from our existing investors, and we look forward to continuing this work with our new investors," she continues.

The 3-megawatt commercial facility will be called EarthStore and will use Sage’s technology that harvests energy from pressurized water from underground. The facility will be able to store energy — for short and long periods of time — and can be paired with intermittent renewable energy sources like wind and solar. It will also be able to provide baseload, dispatchable power, and inertia to the electric grid.

In 2023, Sage Geosystems debuted the EarthStore system in a full-scale commercial pilot project in Texas. The pilot produced 200 kilowatt for more than 18 hours, 1 megawatt for 30 minutes, and generated electricity with Pelton turbines. The system had a water loss of less than 2 percent and a round-trip efficiency (RTE) of 70-75.

Motif Neurotech, which develops minimally invasive bioelectronics for mental health treatment, closed its series A round with an oversubscribed $18.75 million. Photo via Rice.edu

Rice University medical device spinout secures nearly $19M series A

fresh funding

A health tech startup based out of a newly formed accelerator program at Rice University has raised venture funding.

Motif Neurotech closed its series A round with an oversubscribed $18.75 million. The company, which develops minimally invasive bioelectronics for mental health treatment, was formed out of the Rice Biotech Launch Pad that launched last fall.

The round was led by Arboretum Ventures, with participation from new investors KdT Ventures, Satori Neuro, Dolby Family Ventures, re.Mind Capital and existing investors Divergent Capital, TMC Venture Fund, PsyMed Ventures, Empath Ventures and Capital Factory, according to a news release from Rice.

“Minimally invasive bioelectronics are the future of mental health treatment,” Jacob Robinson, CEO and founder of Motif Neurotech, says in the release. “Thirty percent of patients with depression don’t respond to two or more medications, and there is a significant need for additional treatment options that are effective and easily accessible."

The fresh funding will go toward developing the inaugural product, the DOT microstimulator, a wireless, battery-free device that can provide at-home therapy for treatment-resistant depression, or TRD, a major depressive disorder.

“This is a pivotal moment for the company as it closes its Series A in addition to the recent successful completion of the proof-of-concept first-in-human implant of the DOT stimulator device," Tom Shehab, managing partner of Arboretum Ventures, says in the release. "We believe Motif’s device will greatly improve the quality of life for patients who have been diagnosed with difficult to treat mental health disorders, including TRD."

Shehab, along with Amy Kruse, chief investment officer of Satori Neuro, will reportedly join Motif Neurotech's board of directors alongside Anthony Arnold, president and CEO of Sensydia Corporation, and Jacob Robinson, professor of electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering at Rice.

The Rice Biotech Launch Pad was established to take biotech innovations from concept to clinical trials in five years or less. It occupies 15,000 square feet of space on campus and is funded through federal grants and donations.

Tim Boire, CEO and co-founder of VenoStent, shares his company's roadmap on this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

This Houston medical device innovator plans to lead a 'paradigm shift' in vascular surgery

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 199

Commercializing a health tech innovation is a long game — fraught with regulatory obstacles, cyclical rounds of funding, and continuous improvement — all fueled by the desire to enhance treatment and save lives.

That's Tim Boire's plan. And it's a thorough one at that. On this week's episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast, Boire — president and CEO of VenoStent, a medical device startup that’s designing a unique material for hemodialysis patients — shares his roadmap for his company.

"We believe we can be pioneers of a paradigm shift in vascular surgery — to not just treat problems after they've already occurred, but actually prevent them from occurring in the first place," he says in the episode.

VenoStent's most recent hurdle cleared is closing a $16 million series A round of venture funding. Two Charleston, South Carolina-based firms — Good Growth Capital and IAG Capital Partners — led the round. The TMC Venture Fund also contributed.

Now, VenoStent is headed for a 200-patient trial in the United States, with an ultimate goal of product launch in 2026. The company's unique medical device is a bioabsorbable wrap that reduces vein collapse by providing mechanical support and promoting outward vein growth.

Boire had the idea for VenoStend when he was completing his PhD at Vanderbilt University. He completed the program, and then joined the HealthWildcatters accelerator in 2017 in Dallas. After that, Boire and his co-founder, Geoff Lucks, decided to take the leap and move to Houston to join JLABS at TMC. The rest, as they say, is history.

“Houston’s been a great place to hire,” Boire says. “We've been I think very fortunate to find our employees who are stellar, true believers in the technology — amazing engineers, and amazing people.”

And, of course, Boire has a plan to continue this hiring success. He says the goal is to grow to a team of 16 by the end of the year. Marketing and sales roles will likely be filled in 2025 ahead of product launch.

“When we think about what our mission is at VenoStent, it’s to ultimately improve patient care — and we are very passionate about this specific problem that patients experience and go through,” Boire says.

“That's what drives everything we're doing as a company to improve quality and length of life for patients who have chronic kidney disease that progresses to a point where they need dialysis to sustain life," he continues. "We believe that we can become the standard care for vascular surgery starting with hemodialysis access."

As VenoStent's trials and growth goes according to plan, Boire says this product can be used for other implications.

Boire shares more on his grand plan, plus how he weathered the storm that is fundraising at a time where so much venture capital activity has slowed. Listen to the interview here — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.

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Houston ranks among world’s top 30 emerging startup ecosystems

Startup Status

Long known as the Energy Capital of the World, Houston also ranks among the world’s top 30 emerging startup ecosystems, according to a new report.

The report from Startup Genome, a research and advisory organization, doesn’t assign a specific numeric ranking to Houston’s startup ecosystem. Rather, it puts Houston in the ranking range of 21 to 30 for emerging ecosystems. Startup Genome weighed factors such as early-stage funding, performance and talent to identify the top emerging ecosystems.

Houston also gained notice for being one of the world’s 20 emerging ecosystems with at least four unicorn startups in the past 10 years. Houston and nine other ecosystems each had four unicorns.

According to StartupBlink, a startup research platform, Houston’s startup ecosystem grew 24 percent in 2025, with over 1,300 startups and total startup funding exceeding $808 million. StartupBlink places Houston at No. 46 among the world’s top 100 startup ecosystems.

In a recent post on LinkedIn, David Horsup, executive in residence at the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, wrote that Houston “has all the ingredients to be wildly successful if it stays true to its differentiated pillars that drive the economy — energy, medical, and aerospace.”

Mumbai topped Startup Genome’s list of emerging ecosystems, followed by Istanbul, Madrid, Salt Lake City-Provo and Barcelona. After Salt Lake City-Provo, the top U.S. ecosystems were Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis and Las Vegas.

Silicon Valley led Startup Genome’s ranking of the world’s top established ecosystems, followed by New York City, London, Tel Aviv and Boston. Austin landed at No. 18 in this category and Dallas at No. 27.

“For much of the past decade, this report has chronicled the welcome dispersion of opportunity beyond the traditional hubs,” Startup Genome writes. “That trend has not died — but it has been complicated. Capital and scale are consolidating once more, particularly in the United States, and the gap between leading and emerging ecosystems is widening.”

KBR names C-suite duo to lead $5.3B government services spinoff

new leaders

In advance of the spinoff of its Mission Technology Solutions unit, Houston-based KBR has made two C-suite hires for the new business.

Michael LaRouche is coming aboard as president and CEO of the spinoff, currently called SpinCo, on Sept. 26. Nicholas Veasey is joining as executive vice president and chief financial officer on July 1.

“Michael and Nick bring a highly complementary combination of operational leadership, financial expertise, and mission-driven experience, and together they will accelerate our impact for stakeholders,” Stuart Bradie, chairman, president and CEO of publicly traded KBR, said in a news release.

LaRouche currently is CEO of Serco North America, a Herndon, Virginia-based government services contractor. Veasey most recently was CFO of MAG Aerospace, a Fairfax, Virginia-based defense contractor.

SpinCo, a government services contractor, will launch with more than $5.3 billion in annual revenue and 20,000 employees. KBR’s total headcount is around 36,000. Branding for SpinCo, including a formal name, will be revealed in July.

“SpinCo is positioned as a top-tier provider of differentiated technology solutions, anchored by deep mission expertise, global scale, and a relentless commitment to delivering for our customers,” LaRouche says.

After the spinoff, the slimmed-down KBR will focus on its Sustainable Technology Solutions business, a provider of energy and industrial technology that generated $2.5 billion in revenue in 2025. Bradie will remain chairman, president and CEO of the business.

Both SpinCo and the new KBR will be public companies. The spinoff is scheduled to be completed in January.

Experts: Houston's VC ecosystem has set the foundation — now we need scale

guest column

Fervo Energy went public earlier this summer. The Houston geothermal company priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion, and opened the next morning at a market capitalization north of $10 billion. By most measures, it is the largest venture-backed cleantech IPO in history and an unambiguous win for Houston. It’s also a useful moment to look at where Houston's venture ecosystem stands and where it can go. The highlight: Houston's venture ecosystem has real foundations and, with increased company formation activity, can grow into the scale our city's ambitions deserve.

A Houston energy story in the national recovery

The recent uptick in Houston venture activity follows national trends. U.S. venture deal count contracted roughly 22 percent from its 2021 peak through 2024 before rebounding to about 16,700 rounds in 2025. Houston's 23 percent increase in VC funding from 2023 to 2024 is part of a national recovery of comparable magnitude over the same time window.

The energy sector is where Houston exhibits unique trends—and where the story turns clearly positive. (Houston's strong health and space sectors deserve their own separate consideration.) By deal count, energy-related rounds have accounted for 15 to 20 percent of Houston activity, roughly consistent over the past few years.

By capital, energy's share surged from about 14 percent in 2023 to over 60 percent in 2025, driven by a small number of large Houston-headquartered rounds, primarily in geothermal and related technologies. Fervo is the obvious anchor, but Sage Geosystems, Quaise Energy, Zeta Energy, Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon and Mariana Minerals have all closed meaningful rounds. Houston is concentrated and accelerating as an energy capital market, an invaluable position to build upon.

From foundation to scale

The institutional pieces are in place. Greentown Labs, Activate, the Ion and others have built sector-specialized infrastructure most cities would struggle to assemble. Fervo itself is an alum of both Activate and Greentown Labs. Mercury Fund closed its $160 million Fund V, its largest ever. Houston Angel Network, GOOSE Capital, Fathom Fund, and broader pre-seed and seed capital coverage are here. The Houston $10 million-plus Series A list now includes 40 rounds since 2021, which break roughly into two eras. While 2021 to 2022 was biotech-heavy, with companies like Sporos Bioventures, RadioMedix, Cellenkos and Coya Therapeutics, 2024 to 2025 has tilted clearly toward energy, climate, and critical minerals, with Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon, Mariana Minerals, Sage Geosystems and Ignis H2 Energy among them.

What’s less developed is the volume of seed-stage companies flowing into that capital. Imagine a dozen more Fervos coming out of that infrastructure over the next decade, each generating jobs, recycled founder capital, and the next wave of operators and angel investors. That is the kind of opportunity Houston has within reach if we build the company-formation pipeline to feed it. To be relevant on the national stage as a venture market, and to drive an economy the size of Houston's into the 2030s, the city needs to be doing closer to 20 Series A rounds per month rather than per year. That throughput implies roughly 1,000 seed rounds per year, feeding the funnel at a 20 percent to 30 percent graduation rate. Reaching such throughput depends on how many new founders Houston produces and how quickly our innovation ecosystem can help them achieve lift-off.

Houston in context

The comparative picture brings the scaling challenge into focus. Between 2021 and 2024, Houston-area startups closed between 126 and 153 disclosed venture rounds per year, against a national count between 9,854 and 14,125. That places Houston at a little over 1 percent of the U.S. deal count. For comparison, Austin ran about three times Houston's deal count each year.

At the Series A level, Houston closed between 12 and 24 rounds in any given year. The median Houston Series A across the period was about $10.7 million, compared with $15.4 million in San Francisco. Houston founders are raising fewer and smaller Series A rounds than founders in peer metros, which points directly to where Houston has the most room to grow.

The unicorn picture tells the same story. From 2021 through 2025, the U.S. produced 590 venture-backed unicorns. Four were Houston-based: Solugen and Axiom Space in 2021, Cart.com in 2023, and Fervo Energy in 2024. Adding HighRadius from 2020 brings Houston's all-time total to five. Austin added 19 over the same five-year window. The path from here is to make Houston's entries on lists like these less the exception and more the rule.

Where this leads

Houston has a real opportunity to become the deepest, most credible energy and climate capital market in the country, with the company formation, talent and operator density to support it. The data shows the foundation is already in place. Fervo, Solugen and the growing roster of energy-adjacent Series A graduates are proof. Fervo's IPO is the first of what should be many. Houston has not had a venture-backed cleantech liquidity event of this scale before, and the city now has one to reference, recruit against and build on. With increased company formation at the seed and pre-seed stages, a Fervo-scale outcome need not be a generational event in Houston, but instead, it can become part of a chain reaction powering the city's economy.

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Stephanie T. Schmidt, PhD, is the founder of a stealth startup, a Venture Fellow at Energy Transition Ventures, and an Executive MBA candidate at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. Lawson Gow is the Chief Operating Officer of Greentown Labs. The full Houston VC landscape report is available at Energy Transition Ventures and CleanTech.Org.

Sources: Crunchbase, PitchBook-NVCA, Carta
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