Ayoade Joy Ademuyewo founded Lokum last year to create a solution to better connecting medical specialists with health care facilities nationwide. Photo courtesy of Lokum

A Houston health care innovator is celebrating an oversubscribed round of pre-seed funding to improve on her startup's unique staffing platform.

Ayoade Joy Ademuyewo founded Lokum last year to create a solution to better connecting medical specialists with health care facilities nationwide. The new platform, which cuts out the middleman and lowers staffing costs, raised $700,000 in pre-seed funding that will go toward further development of the technology.

"Healthcare organizations spend $26 billion annually to support a crippling dependence on third-party agencies for connecting with clinical staff," Ademuyewo says in a news release. "Technological solutions that are pointed precisely to streamline and strengthen the relationships between highly specialized clinicians and their future employers are vital to alleviating this detrimental dependance, and central to our mission.

"I'm incredibly proud to have earned the trust of my colleagues, investors, team, and mentors in solving this complex problem."

Ademuyewo raised the round with support from local investors, including Aileen Allen, an adviser and investor associated with the Houston Angel Network, Mercury, and The Artemis Fund; and Matt Miller, former Liongard product executive, as well as from Houston-based VC firm South Loop Ventures. Techstars and JP Morgan also contributed to the round.

"Lokum has found a way to disrupt an organically inefficient and expensive market with an elegant solution that doesn't just save hospitals time and money, but also increases the pool of specialty providers in a market that is consistently strapped for such expertise," Jerry Varnado, venture partner at South Loop Ventures, adds. "This is what disruption in healthcare looks like — scalable commercial solutions that contribute towards better patient care, and we're happy to be part of Lokum's journey."

Ademuyewo has the idea to start Lokum after her experience as an independent contract nurse anesthetist amid the height of the pandemic as she witnessed third-party recruitment agencies take advantage of medical professionals like herself.

Now, the platform's early pilot, which focuses on clinicians in anesthesiology, has served clients across nearly 200 hospitals and surgery centers in 20 states. Ademuyewo also participated in 2024’s cohort for the Google for Startups Accelerator Program-North America, where she spent 10 weeks developing and building her company and platform.

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Zach Ellis of South Loop Ventures, Toby Hamilton of Hamilton Health Box, and Ellen Ochoa of NASA. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Every week, I introduce you to a handful of Houston innovators to know recently making headlines with news of innovative technology, investment activity, and more. This week's batch includes a podcast with the founder of a new venture firm, a former astronaut and recent award recipient, and a health care innovator with fresh funding.

Zach Ellis, founder and managing partner of South Loop Ventures

Zach Ellis explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast that South Loop Ventures plans to invest in promising companies from across the country and bring them into Houston's ecosystem to grow and scale. Photo via LinkedIn

Houston has a lot of the right ingredients for commercialization and scaling up companies, so when Zach Ellis moved to town to stand up a venture capital firm that made investments in diverse founders, he decided to go about it in an innovative way.

South Loop Ventures, which Ellis launched two years ago, invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups across health care, climatetech, aerospace, sports, and fintech. While the first handful of investments, which have already been made, are into Houston-based companies, Ellis explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast that the firm plans to invest in promising companies from across the country and bring them into Houston's ecosystem to grow and scale.

"Any investor wants to feel like they are looking at the best possible investment opportunities in which to deploy capital," Ellis says on the show. "So that's reason No. 1 to cast your net as widely as possible.

"At the same time, you want to give any investment that you make greatest chances of success," he continues. "The biggest factor of success outside of the team and the capital you give them, is the customers that they can call upon. In bringing targeted companies to Houston or connecting them with Houston, you introduce the opportunity for them to achieve rapid scale and work with world-class partners very efficiently." Read more.


Toby R. Hamilton, founder and CEO of Hamilton Health Box

Dr. Toby Hamilton has secured $10 million to grow his company. Photo via tmc.edu

A Houston company that is working on a value-based model for primary care has fresh funding to support its mission.

Hamilton Health Box announced the completion of a $10 million series A funding round led by 1588 Ventures with participation from Memorial Hermann Health System, Impact Ventures by Johnson & Johnson Foundation, Texas Medical Center Venture Fund, and the Sullivan Brothers.

The company, founded in 2019 by Dr. Toby R. Hamilton, will use the funding to fuel its expansion into rural areas to help assist those living in Health Professional Shortage Areas, or HPSAs. Read more.

Ellen Ochoa, former astronaut and center director at the NASA's Johnson Space Center

Ellen Ochoa was recognized for her leadership at NASA Johnson and for being the first Hispanic woman in space. Photo via NASA

Two astronauts recently received Presidential Medals of Freedom from President Joe Biden for their leadership in space.

Ellen Ochoa, the former center director and astronaut at the NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, and Jane Rigby, senior project scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, were honored at the White House on May 3.

Ochoa spent 30 years with NASA, which included being the 11th director of JSC, deputy center director of JSC, and director of Flight Crew Operations. She served on the nine-day STS-56 mission aboard the space shuttle Discovery in 1993, and became the first Hispanic woman in space. She flew four more times to space with STS-66, STS-96, STS-110, and more.

“I’m so grateful for all my amazing NASA colleagues who shared my career journey with me,” Ochoa says in a NASA news release. Read more.

Zach Ellis explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast that South Loop Ventures plans to invest in promising companies from across the country and bring them into Houston's ecosystem to grow and scale. Photo via LinkedIn

New VC firm aims to be the bridge between promising startups and Houston's innovation ecosystem

Houston innovators podcast Episode 236

Houston has a lot of the right ingredients for commercialization and scaling up companies, so when Zach Ellis moved to town to stand up a venture capital firm that made investments in diverse founders, he decided to go about it in an innovative way.

South Loop Ventures, which Ellis launched two years ago, invests in pre-seed and seed-stage startups across health care, climatetech, aerospace, sports, and fintech. While the first handful of investments, which have already been made, are into Houston-based companies, Ellis explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast that the firm plans to invest in promising companies from across the country and bring them into Houston's ecosystem to grow and scale.

"Any investor wants to feel like they are looking at the best possible investment opportunities in which to deploy capital," Ellis says on the show. "So that's reason No. 1 to cast your net as widely as possible.

"At the same time, you want to give any investment that you make greatest chances of success," he continues. "The biggest factor of success outside of the team and the capital you give them, is the customers that they can call upon. In bringing targeted companies to Houston or connecting them with Houston, you introduce the opportunity for them to achieve rapid scale and work with world-class partners very efficiently."


With his background that spans from the United States Military to academia and corporate venture, Ellis has had seats on nearly every side of the innovation table. But he says he was called to invest in founders of color after the murder of George Floyd. He says he also realized how much money was being left on the table by overlooking these innovators.

As one of the most diverse cities and the fourth largest city in the country, Houston is the place for Ellis's mission.

"The mission of South Loop is to become the preeminent source of venture capital dollars for underrepresented, diverse teams nationally to serve as a beacon for the best underrepresented talent and to enable them to be successful through leveraging the unique resources and talent of Houston," Ellis says. "A big part of our mission is also to help catalyze Houston as an ecosystem for tech entrepreneurship."

South Loop has six portfolio companies, including Houston-based Milkify, a breast milk freeze-drying service that went on to pitch and receive an investment on Shark Tank. Ellis says the firm expects to announce a handful of new investments over the next year or so. On the show, he explains more on what types of investment opportunities he's looking for and how founders can get in touch.

"The innovation is in the insight," he says. "We look to activate this community because we strongly believe in the power of founder insight."

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Houston space tech startups share latest updates on lunar missions and more

space update

Houston-based space tech companies Axiom Space and Intuitive Machines recently shared updates on innovative projects and missions, each set to launch by 2027.

Axiom Space

Axiom Space, developer of the world’s first commercial space station and other space infrastructure, is gearing up to launch two orbital data center nodes to low-earth orbit by the end of 2025.

The Axiom Space nodes will lay the foundation for space-based cloud computing. Axiom says orbital data centers provide cloud-enabled data storage and processing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning directly to satellites, constellations, and other spacecraft in Earth’s orbit. This innovation will reduce reliance on earth-based systems, enhance wireless mesh networks and improve real-time operation of space-borne assets, according to Axiom.

Axiom has been working on the development of orbital data centers since 2022. The two nodes going into space in 2025 will be part of Kepler Communications’ 10-satellite data relay network, which is scheduled to launch by the end of this year. Axiom Space and Kepler Communications have been collaborating since 2023.

Kam Ghaffarian, co-founder, executive chairman, and CEO of Axiom, says his company already has deals in place with buyers of space-based cloud computing services. Orbital data centers “are integral to Axiom Space’s vision of era-defining space infrastructure, unlocking transformational capabilities and economic growth,” he says.

Axiom Space says it will be able to buy additional payloads on Kepler’s network to boost capacity for orbital data centers. The two companies will team up to provide network and orbital data center services to various customers.

Intuitive Machines

Meanwhile, Intuitive Machines, a space exploration, infrastructure and services company, has picked SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket to launch its fourth delivery mission to the moon. The launch will include two lunar data relay satellites for NASA.

Intuitive Machines says its fourth lunar delivery mission is scheduled for 2027. The mission will comprise six NASA commercial lunar payloads, including a European Space Agency drill set designed to search for water at the moon’s south pole.

“Lunar surface delivery and data relay satellites are central to our strategy to commercialize the moon,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus says.

The first of five lunar data relay satellites will be included in the company’s third delivery mission to the moon. The fourth mission, featuring two more satellites, will be followed by two other satellite-delivery missions.

Houston doctor aims to revolutionize hearing aid industry with tiny implant

small but mighty

“What is the future of hearing aids?” That’s the question that led to a potential revolution.

“The current hearing aid market and technology is old, and there are little incremental improvements, but really no significant, radical new ideas, and I like to challenge the status quo,” says Dr. Ron Moses, an ENT specialist and surgeon at Houston Methodist.

Moses is the creator of NanoEar, which he calls “the world’s smallest hearing aid.” NanoEar is an implantable device that combines the invisibility of a micro-sized tympanostomy tube with more power—and a superior hearing experience—than the best behind-the-ear hearing aid.

“You put the NanoEar inside of the eardrum in an in-office procedure that takes literally five minutes,” Moses says.

As Moses explains, because of how the human cochlea is formed, its nerves break down over time. It’s simply an inevitability that if we live long enough, we will need hearing aids.

“The question is, ‘Are we going to all be satisfied with what exists?’” he asks.

Moses says that currently, only about 20 percent of patients who need hearing aids have them. That’s because of the combination of the stigma, the expense, and the hassle and discomfort associated with the hearing aids currently available on the market. That leaves 80 percent untapped among a population of 466 million people with hearing impairment, and more to come as our population ages. In a nearly $7 billion global market, that additional 80 percent could mean big money.

Moses initially patented a version of the invention in 2000, but says that it took finding the right team to incorporate as NanoEar. That took place in 2016, when he joined forces with cofounders Michael Moore and Willem Vermaat, now the company’s president and CFO, respectively. Moore is a mechanical engineer, while Vermaat is a “financial guru;” both are repeat entrepreneurs in the biotech space.

Today, NanoEar has nine active patents. The company’s technical advisors include “the genius behind developing the brains in this device,” Chris Salthouse; NASA battery engineer Will West; Dutch physicist and audiologist Joris Dirckx; and Daniel Spitz, a third-generation master watchmaker and the original guitarist for the famed metal band Anthrax.

The NanoEar concept has done proof-of-concept testing on both cadavers at the University of Antwerp and on chinchillas, which are excellent models for human hearing, at Tulane University. As part of the TMC Innovation Institute program in 2017, the NanoEar team met with FDA advisors, who told them that they might be eligible for an expedited pathway to approval.

Thus far, NanoEar has raised about $900,000 to get its nine patents and perform its proof-of-concept experiments. The next step is to build the prototype, but completing it will take $2.75 million of seed funding.

Despite the potential for making global change, Moses has said it’s been challenging to raise funds for his innovation.

“We're hoping to find that group of people or person who may want to hear their children or grandchildren better. They may want to join with others and bring a team of investors to offset that risk, to move this forward, because we already have a world-class team ready to go,” he says.

To that end, NanoEar has partnered with Austin-based Capital Factory to help with their raise. “I have reached out to their entire network and am getting a lot of interest, a lot of interest,” says Moses. “But in the end, of course, we need the money.”

It will likely, quite literally, be a sound investment in the future of how we all hear the next generation.