Houston software company raises $50M series A, plans to scale

fresh funding

Fresh off a win at the Houston Innovation Awards, RepeatMD has raised funding. Photo by Emily Jaschke/InnovationMap

Just nine months after its seed round, a Houston startup with a software platform for the aesthetic and wellness industry has secured $40 million in venture capital and $10 million in debt facility.

RepeatMD, a SaaS platform, announced today that it's secured $50 million, which includes a $10 million debt facility from Silicon Valley Bank. The round was co-led by Centana Growth Partners and Full In Partners with participation from PROOF and Mercury Fund, which also contributed to the seed round earlier this year.

The mobile ecommerce platform, launched in October 2021 by Phil Sitter, targets practices within the med spa and aesthetics industry. In the United States, the med spa market is slated to hit $19 billion in 2023, according to the company's press release, while the global aesthetics market is forecasted to reach to nearly $332 billion by 2030.

“Even though the aesthetics and wellness industry has continued to innovate a growing range of life-changing treatments, practices continue to face challenges selling treatments and services that are new and unfamiliar to patients,” Sitter, CEO of RepeatMD, says in the release. “Our goal at RepeatMD is to give these practice owners the technology to elevate their patients’ experience. Our platform serves as a med-commerce engine equipped with the same firepower as large retailers to convert sales inside and outside of practice operating hours.”

The fast-growing company, which has over 100 employees and is looking to hire 20 more according to InnovationMap data, has a client base of 2,500 med spas, dermatologists, OBGYNs, and more across all 50 states. The startup won in the Digital Solutions category at the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards, which took place earlier this month.

“Just 9 months ago Mercury provided RepeatMD’s Seed financing round. We have quickly doubled down in its Series A because of the company's massive traction, customer adoption and Phil’s leadership,” Aziz Gilani, managing director of Mercury Fund, says in the release.

In the past year, RepeatMD reports a 2,519 percent increase in Gross Merchandise Value revenue and a 130 percent increase in SaaS revenue.

“As investors in growth-stage vertical SaaS companies, we’ve closely followed the rise of platforms that not only help practitioners run their businesses, but also drive a higher ROI go-to-market motion,” Jacob Cole, principal at Full In Partners, adds. “RepeatMD stood out both for helping clinics access higher-margin, recurring revenue, and for their customer-centric mindset.”

RepeatMD will use the funding to grow its "network of strategic partners, provide further product enhancements, and integrate AI to further amplify the patient shopping experience while scaling its Inbound Revenue Platform," per the release.

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Last weekend was a tumultuous one for founders and funders in Houston and beyond. Here's what lessons were learned. Photo via Getty Images

Following Silicon Valley Bank collapse, banking diversification is key for Houston founders

SVB shake up

Last week, Houston founder Emily Cisek was in between meetings with customers and potential investors in Austin while she was in town for SXSW. She was aware of the uncertainty with Silicon Valley Bank, but the significance of what was happening didn't hit her until she got into an Uber on Friday only to find that her payment was declined.

“Being positive in nature as I am, and with the close relationship that I have with SVB and how they’ve truly been a partner, I just thought, ‘OK, they’re going to figure it out. I trust in them,'” Cisek says.

Like many startup founders, Cisek, the CEO of The Postage, a Houston-based tech platform that enables digital legacy planning tools, is a Silicon Valley Bank customer. Within a few hours, she rallied her board and team to figure out what they needed to do, including making plans for payroll. She juggled all this while attending her meetings and SXSW events — which, coincidentally, were mostly related to the banking and fintech industries.

Sandy Guitar had a similar weekend of uncertainty. As managing director of HX Venture Fund, a fund of funds that deploys capital to venture capital firms around the country and connects them to the Houston innovation ecosystem, her first concern was to evaluate the effect on HXVF's network. In this case, that meant the fund's limited partners, its portfolio of venture firms, and, by extension, the firms' portfolios of startup companies.

“We ultimately had no financial impact on venture fund 1 or 2 or on any of our portfolio funds or our underlying companies,” Guitar tells InnovationMap. “But that is thanks to the Sunday night decision to ensure all deposits.”

On Sunday afternoon, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took control of SVB and announced that all accounts would be fully insured, not just up to the $250,000 cap. Customers like Cisek had access to their accounts on Monday.

“In the shorter term, the great news is SVB entity seems to be largely up and functioning in a business as usual manner,” Guitar says. “And they have a new leadership team, but their existing systems and predominantly the existing employee base is working well. And what we're hearing is that business as usual is taking place.”

Time to diversify

In light of the ordeal, Guitar says Houston founders and funders can take away a key lesson learned: The importance of bank diversification.

“We didn't think we needed one last week, but this week we know we need a resilience plan," she says, explaining that bank diversification is going to be added to "the operational due diligence playbook."

"We need to encourage our portfolio funds to maintain at least two banking relationships and make sure they're diversifying their cash exposure," she says.

A valued entity

Guitar says SVB is an integral part of the innovation ecosystem, and she believes it will continue on to be, but factoring in the importance of resilience and diversification.

"Silicon Valley Bank and the function that they have historically provided is is vital to the venture ecosystem," she says. "We do have confidence that either SVB, as it is currently structured or in a new structure to come, will continue to provide this kind of function for founders."

Cisek, who hasn't moved any of her company's money out of SVB, has similar sentiments about the importance of the bank for startups. She says she's grateful to the local Houston and Austin teams for opening doors, making connections, and taking chances for her that other banks don't do.

"I credit them to really being partners with startups — down to the relationships they connect you with," she says. "Some of my best friends who are founders came from introductions from SVB. I've seen them take risks that other banks won't do."

With plans to raise funding this yea, Cisek says she's already started her research on how to diversify her banking situation and is looking into programs that will help her do that.

Staying aware

Guitar's last piece of advice is to remain confident in the system, while staying tuned into what's happening across the spectrum.

“This situation that is central to the venture ecosystem is an evolving one," she says. "We all need to keep calm and confident in business as usual in the short term while keeping an eye to the medium term so that we know what happens next with this important bank and with other associated banks in the in our industry."

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Rice University launches hub in India to drive education, tech innovation abroad

global mission

Rice University is launching Rice Global India, which is a strategic initiative to expand India’s rapidly growing education and technology sectors.

“India is a country of tremendous opportunity, one where we see the potential to make a meaningful impact through collaboration in research, innovation and education,” Rice President Reginald DesRoches says in a news release. “Our presence in India is a critical step in expanding our global reach, and we are excited to engage more with India’s academic leaders and industries to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.”

The new hub will be in the country’s third-largest city and the center of the country’s high-tech industry, Bengaluru, India, and will include collaborations with top-tier research and academic institutions.

Rice continues its collaborations with institutions like the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru. The partnerships are expected to advance research initiatives, student and faculty exchanges and collaborations in artificial intelligence, biotechnology and sustainable energy.

India was a prime spot for the location due to the energy, climate change, artificial intelligence and biotechnology studies that align with Rice’s research that is outlined in its strategic plan Momentous: Personalized Scale for Global Impact.

“India’s position as one of the world’s fastest-growing education and technology markets makes it a crucial partner for Rice’s global vision,” vice president for global at Rice Caroline Levander adds. “The U.S.-India relationship, underscored by initiatives like the U.S.-India Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology, provides fertile ground for educational, technological and research exchanges.”

On November 18, the university hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Bengaluru, India to help launch the project.

“This expansion reflects our commitment to fostering a more interconnected world where education and research transcend borders,” DesRoches says.

UH-backed project secures $3.6M to transform CO2 into sustainable fuel with cutting-edge tech

funds granted

A University of Houston-associated project was selected to receive $3.6 million from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy that aims to transform sustainable fuel production.

Nonprofit research institute SRI is leading the project “Printed Microreactor for Renewable Energy Enabled Fuel Production” or PRIME-Fuel, which will try to develop a modular microreactor technology that converts carbon dioxide into methanol using renewable energy sources with UH contributing research.

“Renewables-to-liquids fuel production has the potential to boost the utility of renewable energy all while helping to lay the groundwork for the Biden-Harris Administration’s goals of creating a clean energy economy,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm says in an ARPA-E news release.

The project is part of ARPA-E’s $41 million Grid-free Renewable Energy Enabling New Ways to Economical Liquids and Long-term Storage program (or GREENWELLS, for short) that also includes 14 projects to develop technologies that use renewable energy sources to produce sustainable liquid fuels and chemicals, which can be transported and stored similarly to gasoline or oil, according to a news release.

Vemuri Balakotaiah and Praveen Bollini, faculty members of the William A. Brookshire Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are co-investigators on the project. Rahul Pandey, is a UH alum, and the senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator on the project.

Teams working on the project will develop systems that use electricity, carbon dioxide and water at renewable energy sites to produce renewable liquid renewable fuels that offer a clean alternative for sectors like transportation. Using cheaper electricity from sources like wind and solar can lower production costs, and create affordable and cleaner long-term energy storage solutions.

Researchers Rahul Pandey, senior scientist with SRI and principal investigator (left), and Praveen Bollini, a University of Houston chemical engineering faculty, are key contributors to the microreactor project. Photo via uh.edu

“As a proud UH graduate, I have always been aware of the strength of the chemical and biomolecular engineering program at UH and kept myself updated on its cutting-edge research,” Pandey says in a news release. “This project had very specific requirements, including expertise in modeling transients in microreactors and the development of high-performance catalysts. The department excelled in both areas. When I reached out to Dr. Bollini and Dr. Bala, they were eager to collaborate, and everything naturally progressed from there.”

The PRIME-Fuel project will use cutting-edge mathematical modeling and SRI’s proprietary Co-Extrusion printing technology to design and manufacture the microreactor with the ability to continue producing methanol even when the renewable energy supply dips as low as 5 percent capacity. Researchers will develop a microreactor prototype capable of producing 30 MJe/day of methanol while meeting energy efficiency and process yield targets over a three-year span. When scaled up to a 100 megawatts electricity capacity plant, it can be capable of producing 225 tons of methanol per day at a lower cost. The researchers predict five years as a “reasonable” timeline of when this can hit the market.

“What we are building here is a prototype or proof of concept for a platform technology, which has diverse applications in the entire energy and chemicals industry,” Pandey continues. “Right now, we are aiming to produce methanol, but this technology can actually be applied to a much broader set of energy carriers and chemicals.”

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Houston innovator drives collaboration, access to investment with female-focused group

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 262

After working in technology in her home country of Pakistan, Samina Farid, who was raised in the United States, found her way to Houston in the '70s where business was booming.

She was recruited to work at Houston Natural Gas — a company that would later merge and create Enron — where she rose through the ranks and oversaw systems development for the company before taking on a role running the pipelines.

"When you're in technology, you're always looking for inefficiencies, and you always see areas where you can improve," Farid says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, explaining that she moved on from Enron in the mid-'80s, which was an exciting time for the industry.

"We had these silos of data across the industry, and I felt like we needed to be communicating better, having a good source of data, and making sure we weren't continuing to have the problems we were having," she says. "That was really the seed that got me started in the idea of building a company."

She co-founded Merrick Systems, a software solutions business for managing oil and gas production, with her nephew, and thus began her own entrepreneurial journey. She came to another crossroads in her career after selling that business in 2014 and surviving her own battle with breast cancer.

"I got involved in investing because the guys used to talk about it — there was always men around me," Farid says. "I was curious."

In 2019, she joined an organization called Golden Seeds. Founded in 2005 in New York, the network of angel investors funding female-founded enterprises has grown to around 280 members across eight chapters. Suzan Deison, CEO of the Houston Women's Chamber, was integral in bringing the organization to Houston, and now Farid leads it as head of the Houston Chapter of Golden Seeds.

For Farid, the opportunity for Houston is the national network of investors — both to connect local female founders to potential capital from coast to coast and to give Houston investors deal flow from across the country.

"It was so hard for me to get funding for my own company," Farid says. "Having access to capital was only on the coasts. Software and startups was too risky."

Now, with Golden Seeds, the opportunity is there — and Farid says its an extremely collaborative investor network, working with local organizations like the Houston Angel Network and TiE Houston.

"With angel investing, when we put our money in, we want these companies to succeed," she says."We want more people to see these companies and to invest in them. We're not competing. We want to work with others to help these companies succeed."

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