Houston SaaS company achieves unicorn status following $125 million fundraising round

New unicorn

Houston-based HighRadius has reported reaching unicorn status following a $125 million raise. Photo via highradius.com

Following the closing of a $125 million series B investment round, a Houston software-as-a-service company is boosting a new title: Unicorn.

HighRadius, an artificial intelligence-powered fintech software company, has announced its unicorn status, which is defined as being valued at over $1 billion. The series B round, which achieved this status for HighRadius, was led by ICONIQ Capital, with participation from existing investors Susquehanna Growth Equity and Citi Ventures, according to a news release from the company.

"Today marks an important milestone for HighRadius and we're thrilled to have ICONIQ join us in our vision to modernize the Order to Cash space," says Sashi Narahari, founder and CEO of HighRadius, in a news release. "ICONIQ combines patient capital with a long-term vision of investing in category-defining businesses, and the firm has worked with some of the world's most successful tech entrepreneurs. We are building HighRadius into a self-sustaining, long-term category leader, and ICONIQ is a great partner for us in this journey."

The company, which offices in West Houston, was founded in 2006 founded in 2006 and employs more than 1,000 people in North America, Europe, and Asia. In November, HighRadius opened an office in Amsterdam. According to the news release, the company will use the funds to further expand its global footprint.

"We're thrilled to support HighRadius' efforts to bring innovative AI capabilities to the financial side of the enterprise," says Will Griffith, partner at ICONIQ Capital, in a news release. "As we have seen in many of our portfolio companies and past investments, including BlackLine and Coupa, digital transformation is increasingly a CFO priority."

HighRadius' AI-powered software is designed to streamline accounts-receivable and cash-management processes. For instance, HighRadius' Cash Application software relies on AI to comb through documents like emails and invoices to automatically match incoming payments with customers' accounts.

"The HighRadius platform is game-changing for CFOs and finance departments, and the company has earned tremendous customer loyalty by enabling receivables and treasury teams to perform more efficiently and effectively, and by delivering mission-critical ROI," Griffith continues in the release. "HighRadius fits squarely into our commitment to invest in best-in-class, long-term technology businesses driven by incredible teams, and we look forward to working alongside Sashi and the rest of the HighRadius team through their next phase of growth."

Houston-based Tracts, which makes it easier for mineral buyers and E&P companies to find leads in the industry, is geared for major growth. Courtesy of Tracts

Oil and gas SaaS platform based in Houston expands to Dallas amid major growth

Right on tracts

A Houston company has flipped the script on lead generation for mineral buying in the oil and gas industry. Tracts.co has developed a way to get its clients in front of mineral sellers they otherwise wouldn't know to approach.

"Right now, mineral buyers have one major bottleneck — it's consistent across companies except those using Tracts — and it's lead generation," says Ashley Gilmore, CEO and co-founder of the company.

Traditionally, mineral buyers or E&P companies would have to go through public records to source leads. But Tracts' customers have access to the company's title management platform, which uses a patented computation engine and an interpretation library. The process reduces the cost and time spent generating leads, as well as the risk associated with mineral ownership and exploration and production companies and mineral buyers, Gilmore says.

The company has been around since 2014, and began hitting its stride last year after beta testing and working out the structure of the technology. Now, the more customers Tracts has, the more data the system has, which translates to a more valuable platform.

"For some of our clients, Tracts is now existential for their business," Gilmore says. "In other words, they wouldn't be able to operate on their current business model without Tracts."

It's not only customer growth the company has seen. Tracts launched a land solutions group called TLS — Tracts Land Solutions — in the beginning of the year. That group is growing by a dollar amount of 30 percent month over month since January. Tracts also opened a Dallas office, which focused on this land solutions team, to keep up with clients.

"There were two people in Dallas working from home in January," Gilmore says. "Last month, we moved into a 12-person office, and now we've already outgrown it."

Tracts has a 16-person office it'll be moving into, and Gilmore says he expects to double that in the next month or so. Tract's Houston headquarters is around 10 people, and the company has its development team in Seattle. The technology, Gilmore adds, is able to be used throughout the country since it's cloud based.

All this growth is translating into some interesting developments for Tracts, but Gilmore isn't ready yet to announce anything.

"I think our clients are going to be very happy within the next three to six months," Gilmore says.

Tracts allows its clients to skip a few steps in the mineral buying process. Courtesy of Tracts

Marie Myers is the CFO of UiPath and is based in the company's new Houston office. Courtesy of UiPath

Robotics exec talks plans for new Houston office and the future of automation

robot revolution

It's safe to say that Marie Myers — CFO of UiPath, which opened its 71-person office in Houston earlier this year — loves her job.

The robotics process automation company, which was founded in Romania before moving its headquarters to New York City last year, is in major growth mode. At the helm of the financial side of things is Myers, who has over 20 years of experience in technology.

When Myers was working on a spinoff project for HP, she started seeing the difference software automation makes on a company's bottom line.

"I realized RPA was the fastest way to drive efficiencies, so I started building bots," she tells InnovationMap. "During that time, I came across UiPath and I saw how impressive their technology was. In my more than two-decade career, I hadn't really come across a technology that I felt that had such an impressive impact in such a short time."

She drank the UiPath Kool-Aid, and when the company came to her adopted hometown of Houston to open an office to be its central, Midwestern location, she leapt at the opportunity to join the team. Now, with several months under her belt in the position and a growing office, Myers speaks with InnovationMap about the company's growth and the revolution that RPA is having in business.

InnovationMap: You've been in your role since January, but you've been in tech for a while now. How has the transition been for you?

Marie Myers: This has been one of the most exciting times for my career. I've been in tech for about two decades. I started with Compaq — quite an incredible company that started right here in Texas. It was a very famous startup in its own time, and I had a chance to be a part of that wave, which was really incredible. Then, it got bought out by HP, and then I pivoted and spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley for a couple decades.

I got involved in robotics process automation quite by happenstance about four years ago when HP decided to split. I was involved in setting up a company from the finance and legal perspective. I got challenged to drive some cost efficiency, so I turned to RPA as a means to drive some of that impact within my own organization of a couple thousand folks.

When the opportunity came up to be CFO for UiPath, I really jumped at it because it filled two important things for me. I wanted to be a leader of a finance organization and team. Secondly, I wanted to do something where I was really passionate about the technology. When I think about RPA, the world lights up for me. It's truly transformative.

IM: How did UiPath decide to open a Houston office? What made the city a key market?

MM: Houston — particularly Texas — are both important for us, from a customer perspective. We have some of our larger companies in the country here in Texas, so it was a natural place to look to build capability. Secondly, we're impressed with the overall quality of the market and the availability of different skills here as we build out our company.

IM: What are some goals UiPath has for its new Houston office?

MM: Overall, one of the key goals is to establish a strong Midwest presence for the company. Texas is an ideal location if you think about it for customers that range from the East to the West. Being in the middle is a good, central location. Also, as we grow and expand in Latin America, it's another interesting spot for us. So, one, to ensure that we are able to support the growth needs of the company throughout the United States and leverage the strategic location that Texas has.

I think the other goal is to build some of the core skills we need for the overall organization as we grow in the United States. UiPath is a relatively new player in the U.S., only been here a couple of years.

Finally, we've got terrific customers here, so what's important is to continue to support and nurture those customers. We have a big presence in oil and gas and the support companies within energy.

IM: Tell me about the Academic Alliance and how the company engages with students.

MM: Basically, we offer free training to the universities so that students can get first-hand experience for robotics process automation, which is part of our broader commitment we've made to ensure RBA is available in an open, democratized way.

We are big proponents of supporting students, and we had a great intern program this last summer. We had a double-digit number of interns — I think the largest population in the U.S. We love the fact that we have this access to universities that we can easily tap into.

Just a couple weeks ago we ran UiPath's first-ever hackathon for students in the United States. We had over 50 participants.

We're really excited about building out the ecosystem with the universities and the students here in Houston.

IM: What sort of misconceptions do you encounter within automation?

MM: First and foremost, a lot of it is misconceptions about RPA replacing jobs. I'd say it's a shift in the workforce — I witness this first hand because I had a team where we implemented and built bots. What happens is you create capacity and end up creating new jobs. You have roles of managing bots, bot controllers, bot librarians — these are roles that fundamentally didn't exist five years ago.

IM: What advice do you have for women in tech?

MM: I think it's so critical for women to be in the driving seat and in the forefront of technology. I have two daughters and I'm adamant about how they are exposed to robotics. I did a coffee talk in Houston not too long ago, and I really challenged the women to get out there and get digitally literate. It's really important as women that we don't let ourselves fall behind on technology and how they are impacting both our work and our families. So, staying informed, no matter how you do that — reading, podcasts, news. Another way is to join and network with associations. Myself and another woman important in this space are looking to create a network for women in automation. We want to build a group that will allow women to look for jobs, board roles, mentors, etc. in this industry.

IM: What role do you see Houston playing in the greater innovation conversation and where does the city have room to improve?

MM: I'm a big fan of Houston. I'm Australian, but I feel like a Texas implant now. It's an incredibly diverse city, and I think that's one of its greatest strengths. You've got people from all walks of life from all parts of the world and a great education system. That creates a really unique backdrop for the technology-led era we're in. The historical strengths of the city have been predicated on the healthy oil and gas sector and medical sector — both are important industries going through major technology transformations. I think for Houston being able to capitalize on all that is a very unique opportunity. It will position Houston very well for the future. You've got the right ingredients here.

Where the city is going to have to continue to build is specifically around some of these skills for the future. Artificial intelligence and having that depth of experience is an area the city struggles in. Certainly other cities like Seattle and San Francisco have tens of years of experience from companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon that have been able to build deep AI. In Houston, that skillset is going to come more from oil and gas, where they've been building some of those skills, just not in the same breath and not in the same depth as those other cities. I think the real opportunity is to nourish and nurture this in the academic institutions and then take that talent out of the academic institutions and integrate them into the corporations.

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Portions of this interview have been edited.

James Yockey is a co-founder of Landdox, which recently integrated with ThoughtTrace. Courtesy of Landdox

These two Houston software companies are making contracts less cumbersome for oil and gas companies

Team work

The biggest asset of most oil and gas companies is their leasehold: the contracts or deeds that give the company the right to either drill wells and produce oil and gas on someone else's land, or give them title to that land outright. A typical oil and gas company is involved in thousands of these uniquely negotiated leases, and the software to keep these documents organized hasn't been updated in more than a decade, says James Yockey, founder of Houston-based Landdox.

Landdox does just that: provides an organizational framework for companies' contracts and leaseholds. The company recently entered into an integration with Houston-based ThoughtTrace, an artificial intelligence program that can scan and pull out key words and provisions from cumbersome, complicated contracts and leaseholds.

With this integration, companies can use ThoughtTrace to easily identify key provisions of their contracts, and then sync up those provisions with their Landdox account. From there, Landdox will organize those provisions into easy-to-use tools like calendars, reminders and more.

The framework behind the integration
The concept behind Landdox isn't entirely new — there are other software platforms built to organize oil and gas company's assets — but it's the first company in this space that's completely cloud-based, Yockey says.

"Within these oil and gas leases and other contracts are really sticky provisions … if you don't understand them, and you're not managing them, it can cause you to forfeit a huge part of your asset base," Yockey says. "It can be a seven-, eight-, or nine-digit loss."

These contracts and leases can be as long as 70 or 80 pages, Yockey says, and have tricky provisions buried in them. Before the integration with ThoughtTrace, oil and gas companies would still have to manually pour over these contracts and identify key provisions that could then be sent over to Landdox, which would organize the data and documents in an easy-to-use platform. The ThoughtTrace integration removes a time-consuming aspect of the process for oil and gas companies.

"[ThoughtTrace] identifies the most needle moving provisions and obligations and terms that get embedded in these contracts by mineral owners," Yockey says. "It's a real source of leverage for the oil and gas companies. You can feed ThoughtTrace the PDF of the lease and their software will show you were these provisions are buried."

The origin story
Landdox was founded in 2015, and is backed by a small group of angel investors. Yockey says the investors provided a "little backing," and added that Landdox is a "very capital-efficient" software company.

Landdox and ThoughtTrace connected in 2017, when the companies were working with a large, private oil and gas company in Austin. The Austin-based oil and gas company opted to use Landdox and ThoughtTrace in parallel, which inspired the two companies to develop an integrated prototype.

"We built a prototype, but it was clear that there was a bigger opportunity to make this even easier," Yockey says. "To quote the CEO of ThoughtTrace, he called [the integration] an 'easy button.'"

The future of ERP software
Landdox's average customer is a private equity-backed E&P or mineral fund, Yockey says, thought the company also works with closely held, family-owned companies. Recently, though, Landdox has been adding a new kind of company to its client base.

"What's interesting is we're starting to add a new customer persona," Yockey says. "The bigger companies – the publicly traded oil and gas companies –have all kinds of different ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software running their business, but leave a lot to be desired in terms of what their team really needs."

At a recent North American Prospect Expo summit, Yockey says that half a dozen large capitalization oil and gas producers invited Landdox to their offices, to discuss potentially supplementing the company's ERP software.

"Instead of trying to be all things to all people, we stay in our lane, but find cool ways to connect with other software (companies)," Yockey says.

With its new German office, Houston-based DiCentral looks to grow into other European markets, such as France, Italy, and Spain. Pexels

Houston SaaS company expands in Europe following acquisition

You're up, Europe

After slowly expanding worldwide for years, a Houston-based software-as-a-service company finally has a firm footing in Europe following its acquisition of a German company.

In December, DiCentral closed its deal with a Munich-based supply chain company named Compello Germany. With that acquisition, DiCentral Europe was born. Steve Scala, executive vice president of corporate development, says the deal was made possible after the company raised $15 million from Kanye Anderson Capital Advisors LP in 2016.

"We have a large supply chain network over Asia and North America, which gave us great coverage for our clients. In Europe, however, we're dealing with different supply chains," Scala says. "We had few people on the ground in Europe even though we have clients based there as well as clients elsewhere who conduct business there. We saw the need to fill that gap."

The new German office opens doors for the company to enter other European markets, and Scala says the company is looking into France, Italy, and Spain.

Currently, DiCentral's largest offices are in Houston and Ho Chi Minh City where they employ 150 and 300 people respectively. The company, which was founded in 2000 by Chairman and CEO Thuy Mai, has about 600 employees in total, and focuses on bonding buyers and suppliers, so both sides can optimize both the physical and digital supply chain.

DiCentral offers cloud-based electronic data interchange and supply chain solutions to its clients. By using DiCentral's propriety software, its clients, which include retailers, original equipment manufacturers, suppliers and more across many industry verticals, can find solutions tailored to their business.

"Global supply chains quickly can become very complex, especially when you add web purchases or individual orders from retailers that are sent from the manufacturers but made to look like they were sent from the retailer," Scala explains.

DiCentral allows businesses to improve their visibility of the supply chain by automating fulfillments, shipping and receiving processes.

"The end result for clients, whether they are a manufacturer, retailer or a third-party involved in distribution, using our software is improving the efficiency of supply chain," Scala continues. "With our solutions, clients can ramp up their operations even when navigating incredibly complex supply chains."

As DiCentral plans its continued European expansion, the company is facing various challenges from training its new 35 employees in Munich to potential logistical and regulatory issues.

"Our primary focus in 2019 is integrating the German operations with DiCentral. There are a lot of privacy challenges in Europe with GDPR, which means we need to be smart and cautious with how to deploy data centers because of stricter data privacy rules," Scala says.

Despite the challenges, Scala expects the new acquisition to lead to large growth for the company.

"I'm excited for the future. We closed on some great business contracts last year, however, the way our business works, we don't make money until there are transactions taking place across our network," Scala says.

It can take months to fully integrate clients into the DiCentral network, but Scala looks forward to the new revenue source. New contracts with large companies will allow DiCentral to continue fueling its global growth. The company continues to grow and hire, both abroad and locally, for various positions in sales, customer support, product management and marketing.

While the business continues to grow with an eye on new market sectors and areas for expansion, the DiCentral global headquarters are still located right by NASA. As a company founded in Texas, many of its original client base is based within the state.

"Texas has been a great location for us. We have data centers here in Texas, our headquarters are in Houston, so the original infrastructure of the company is all in Texas," says Scala.

Steve Scala joined DiCentral in 2014 to focus on growing the company worldwide. Courtesy of DiCentral

California-based Bill.com is opening its second office in Houston. Photo via Bill.com

Expanding fintech company bets on Houston for second office

Bills, bills, bills

Usually, getting stuck with the bill isn't a good situation to be in, but this is different. Houston just scored the second office of Bill.com, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based business software company. The company decided on Houston because of what the city has to offer both the business and its employees.

"We conducted an extensive national search to select our first location outside the San Francisco Bay Area," says René Lacerte, CEO of Bill.com, in a release from the Greater Houston Partnership. "We're growing at a high speed and it's critical to find the right mix of talent, quality of life and business-friendliness in our next office location. We found all this and more in Houston and are delighted the city can support our next phase of growth."

Planned to open this spring, Bill.com's Houston office will be located on the west side of town at the CityWest development, where it will occupy 25,000 square feet, per the release, and employ 125 people.

"The City of Houston is thrilled to welcome the Bill.com team," says Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner in the release. "We've always been a global and innovative city and the Bill.com announcement is another great example of Houston's building momentum as a leading digital tech hub. We offer a great place to live, work and grow a business, especially for startups and entrepreneurs."

Bill.com was founded in 2006 by René Lacerte and has raised over $259 million in funding. The software-as-a-service company has over 3 million members, according to Bill.com, and processes $60 billion in payments annually.

The Greater Houston Partnership was instrumental in bringing the second Bill.com office to town.

"Houston has always been at the cutting edge of technology — we put a person on the moon and created the first artificial heart, and we continue to build on that legacy," says Susan Davenport, the Greater Houston Partnership's chief economic development officer. "We've been working hard over the last couple of years to develop our community as a hub for digital tech, and the Bill.com expansion here is a validation and confirmation that we've made great progress."

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Houston flight-tracking software company grows its local and international presence

taking flight

FlightAware LLC's business success has, for the most part, flown under the radar in Houston.

Many travelers know about the B2C flight-tracking functionality of FlightAware. "That's a very, very competitive space. We play in that space, but it's not our core business," founder and CEO Daniel Baker says.

These days, the privately held Houston company earns most its revenue from the B2B data it provides to airlines and other aviation clients, according to Baker. He declines to reveal revenue figures, but notes that the company — which bills itself as the world's largest flight-tracking and flight data platform — hasn't taken a penny of outside funding since it started in 2005.

Today, FlightAware employs about 110 people, with the majority of them located in Houston, Baker says. The company also maintains offices in Austin, New York City, London, and Singapore.

By the end of 2020, the companywide workforce should exceed 135, as FlightAware aims to add three new hires per month this year in areas such as Internet of Things, data science, sales, and administration, Baker says. Most of the new employees will work in Houston.

Baker says FlightAware takes an aggressive approach to hiring, with the goal of bringing aboard "really awesome people" who share levels of talent, collaboration, and "culture fit" similar to those of current employees.

By the end of 2021, FlightAware likely will run out of room in its 24,000-square-foot office at 11 Greenway Plaza in the Greenway/Upper Kirby area, Baker says. That means FlightAware will need to take about 15,000 additional square feet at 11 Greenway Plaza or relocate to a different building, he says. The company moved into its current home in 2017 from a 14,000-square-foot office at 8 Greenway Plaza.

Baker, who's a private pilot and a board member of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, launched the company 15 years ago as a way to combine two passions: software development and aviation.

"It was originally a hobby, and it became a business," Baker says. "It's an unlikely story. We're really, really fortunate that the timing was right."

Although FlightAware started off tracking flights in the general aviation space, it has since expanded to supply aviation data to both travelers and businesses. Each month, about 15 million passengers use the FlightAware app, which earns praise from a slew of travel critics.

Among flight-tracking apps, FlightAware "is a bit of a Swiss army knife," Condé Nast Traveler magazine observes. The FlightAware app lets you follow flights in real time, including where an incoming plane is coming from, how close it is to arriving, and what kind of weather it's encountering en route, the magazine notes. In addition, the app can send push notifications about arrivals, departures, gate changes, flight delays, and flight cancellations.

Now, FlightAware relies on the consumer-facing technology "as a stepping stone to have a bigger impact," Baker says. "Every project that we undertake is larger than the last one."

That "bigger impact" involves cranking out data that enables commercial airlines, cargo carriers, business aviation companies, and air traffic controllers to be proactive instead of reactive regarding flight activity, he says.

FlightAware's corporate customers include United Airlines, Hawaiian Airlines, business-jet operator NetJets and GPS technology provider Garmin. Baker says a North American airline that he declines to name will soon roll out FlightAware technology to its airport gate agents.

For airlines, FlightAware's software delivers accurate data to help cut down, among other issues, on problems with flight delays, gate assignments, and flight connections, Baker says. FlightAware pulls data from more than 25,000 aircraft surveillance websites covering nearly 200 countries as well as air traffic control systems in more than 45 countries.

While the consumer-oriented features of FlightAware's technology face competition from the likes of FlightStats, FlightView, and The Flight Tracker, the B2B landscape is less populated. Over the years, corporate giants like Airbus, Boeing, and IBM have tackled aviation data on their own but have wound up forging data partnerships with FlightAware, according to Baker.

California self-driving vehicle startup has all eyes on Houston — here's why

On a roll

Houston — with its sprawl and winding roads broken up across various neighborhoods — is particularly challenging when it comes to self-driving car navigation. And that's exactly why Nuro, a California-based tech startup that's raised over $1 billion in funding, decided to focus on the Bayou City for its autonomous vehicle delivery pilot programs.

"Houston is our first full-scale operations city," Sola Lawal, product operations manager in Houston, tells InnovationMap. "All eyes at Nuro are focused on Houston."

Last year alone, Nuro launched three pilots in six of Houston's ZIP codes from Bellaire to the Heights. The first of which was a partnership with Kroger in March, followed by the announcement of autonomous pizza delivery from Domino's in June. Last month, Nuro announced its latest delivery partner was Walmart.

Lawal explains Houston's appeal to Nuro in a few ways, but the challenging landscape is key. Nuro cars are learning from the narrow, tree-laden streets of West University or the pedestrian-heavy, ditch-lined paths in the Heights.

"There's a ton for us to learn, but it's a great microcosm of the United States in a number of different ways," he says.

In addition to its diversity within its street types, Houston, named the most diverse city in the country, represents an ideal customer base, says Lawal, a Houston native himself. Houstonians are open minded about new experiences.

"If you think and look across Houston, the average commute is over 60 minutes for people to get back and forth," Lawal tells InnovationMap. "As we surveyed across major cities we were interested in, Houston stood out as a place where customers said they don't want go to the grocery store if they don't have to or get in their cars again to pick up their pizza."

The third reason Houston was a great market for Nuro is the amount of regulatory support the state of Texas has — Gov. Greg Abbott announced the launch of the Texas Connected and Autonomous Vehicle task force a year ago — as well as the support at the city level.

"It's been a welcoming environment from the mayor's office down for us to be here," Lawal says.

Since entering the Houston market, Nuro's local operations have grown to over 100 employees. The company still has software operations out of California, and some work being done in Arizona, but the Houston is the largest — and growing as the company seeks new partnerships with more stores with a goal of eliminating errands once and for all.

"The way that we think about this is that this new technology and our mission of accelerating robotics for everyday life, is we will bring the people what they want," Lawal says when asked about what types of stores Nuro is looking to partner with.

Eventually, Lawal says, the plan would be to have every errand be delivery optimized with Nuro technology — from big-box stores like Walmart to your local florist.

"Our goal is to have a platform that retailers can connect to in order to provide easy and inexpensive delivery," he says.

Currently, Nuro's technology is still in learning mode. Nuro's fleet of Prius cars with staff onboard are driving up and down Houston streets mapping and taking notes on a daily basis. The company also has bots, called the R2 fleet, that are designed to be unmanned.

These bots are smaller than normal cars and are completely electric. Rather than being designed to protect passengers inside like traditional automobiles, the R2s are designed to be safe for people outside the vehicle.

"It's a new way of thinking about transportation and what our vehicles can and should do," Lawal says.

2020 is the year of these R2 bots, and some areas can expect to see them in action — specifically focused on Domino's pizza delivery — in just a matter of weeks.

Preparing Houston's tech workforce starts in school, says expert

Guest column

Recent studies have shown that nearly half of students enter college with an undecided major and as many as 70 percent of students change their major at least once during their four-year program, and it is predicted that by 2030, there will be a deficit of 7.9 million tech workers alone.

In order to better prepare the future workforce, schools are encouraging career exploration through hands-on experience. The Village School has created educational partnerships throughout Houston to offer students options to find their interests and better prepare them for postsecondary success.

Educational partnerships

Students are prone to changing their majors because often they will go into a field with an impractical idea of what a specific career actually entails. With partnerships between education and industry, Houston is able to better equip students to enter college with a realistic view of what to expect in their major.

While career-focused partnerships are beneficial for students, they also play a huge role in recruiting valuable skilled talent for years to come. A good impression, good mentors and great experience goes a long way when students start job searching.

Tuning into Houston's workforce

High school is the time for students to explore different career options. When students are placed in an internship program as early as the high school level, they are able to see exactly what the day to day looks like while building a foundation of professional development as they start to think about their future. It's important for students to have a realistic vision of what a career looks like.

There are numerous businesses in Houston that are working with high school students to help them gain experience.

For example, a few of the businesses that have partnerships with The Village School include Houston Methodist Hospital, Pimcore, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, and Cisco. Students are able to gain experience in a variety of ways including:

Working alongside surgical technicians and experience open-heart surgery and quarantined situations
Learning from cancer researchers who study nicotine addiction in children and the effects on brain development
Leveraging data analytics to develop software helping internal team members organize calendars at a leading SAP company

All students finished their internship with a better understanding of the workforce and the skills necessary to perform in a professional environment.

Finding opportunities for everyone

If students don't attend a high school that offers internships there are still opportunities to gain experience. Many businesses are open to job shadowing or having students volunteer a few hours a week to gain experience over the summer months. The opportunity for experience is out there and available and these opportunities will continue to grow and become more accessible for all students. Houston families and businesses must work together to ensure students know their options before entering college.

Educational partnerships benefit both students and the community. It's crucial for Houston to prepare the next generation's workforce to succeed and fill jobs with capable talent. Students are able to see that while they may not think they are interested in a specific field there are opportunities within the field that match their strengths and interests.