Startup aims for goal of connecting Houston sports community

game on

Houston-based Sportlo is shooting for a one-stop-shop platform for sporting programs in Houston. Cade Martin/Getty Images

In virtually no time at all, Sportlo has built its reputation on the simplest of foundations: community.

Thilo Borgmann and Sebastian Henke founded the local hub for sports parents earlier this year as a tool for sports moms and dads to stay connected with local leagues, sports clubs, coaches, and other parents with children involved in youth sports in the greater Houston area.

"We make it easy for sports parents to keep up with what's happening in their local youth sports community," says Henke. "With our platform, they can discover tryouts, camps, and sports clubs. They can also join and create groups, find private coaches for their kids, and more."

Borgmann and Henke are both former NCAA Division 1 soccer players who starred while they were student athletes at Houston Baptist University, then went on to become well-known private coaches.

The sports-loving duo saw a dearth of useful information for sports parents on popular social media sites, so they created the platform to give users a central place to communicate with each other, join and create groups, discover tryouts and camps for their children and find private coaches across the city to help their young athletes reach their goals.

"We were both involved in sports for most of our lives and then got into private coaching," says Henke. "Overall, what we saw was that there is an entire ecosystem of youth sports and it was very much unorganized."

Henke says sports clubs weren't able to reach potential members and their parents. He says they envisioned a one-stop-shop approach to the sports ecosystem.

"So, Sportlo is focused on sports parents, but within the community, we try to connect persons with coaches, with clubs, with colleges and so on," Henke says. "That's the vision behind it, so people will have a place to have a community, to get advice and tips and then they will have access to certain services and information."

The plan for Sportlo has already evolved in its short life. Originally the platform was going to support just private coaching.

"After we got more feedback from parents and first users, we started to adapt the product and rebuilt the product," Henke says. "Based on the surveys we collected online, parents wanted us to find ways how to connect them with each other, so that's why we started building it as a new page and that's how we realized where it needed to go."

The biggest lesson in listening to their users was understanding that any initial vision to help a community must also be focused on or include what's intrinsically valuable to the users.

"Too often, people get focused on their own ideas and forget that feedback offers surprising moments," says Henke. "Users gave us a whole new path, which kept us from going in the direction where users wouldn't want the product to go."

Feedback from users is key, Henke says, and he recommends startup founders prioritize user experience and constructive criticism.

"All of the ideas that we had in our head, at some point we had to stop and reevaluate them and then focus on the most important thing first and then go from there," he says.

Still, the launch of Sportlo was not without its own unique challenges. Its March go-live date coincided in point of time with the spread of COVID-19, which ultimately turned into a worldwide pandemic.

"We haven't had to make any major changes," says Henke. "But groups on the platform have focused on that topic because there are no sports happening at the moment and they are eager to get them back. But other than that, it's not something we've had to focus on. But for parents, they've focused on related topics, like how to keep their kids busy at home doing exercises, things like that, or when discussing when their kids' clubs are starting back up and how to keep kids safe."

In addition to forming groups and sharing a variety of sports-related topics, parents can post pictures and videos of their child's latest tournament or game, get access to useful articles shared by fellow parents and find recommended sports products for themselves or their child.

"The main reason we added that social component was because we wanted to have a user timeline so when they log in, all the users can see something sports related," says Borgmann. "There's so much noise, with politics and posts that are only about the coronavirus and all that, so we wanted to focus on sports and have parents be able to show how their kid is doing, see other kids in action and support each other with a focus on sports without seeing all the other distractions that might be on other platforms."

For now, Sportlo is focused solely on keeping Houston informed, but it will look to expand to other cities and states when the time comes.

"We are focused right now only on Houston, because we know Houston and Texas and we've experienced different levels of sports in this area, so we want to stay local," says Henke. "Then, the next step is we intend to take it to other cities within Texas. And at some point, our vision is to have the entire youth ecosystem of the United States."

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Houston startup is off to the races with its innovative running shoes

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Despite Houston’s reputation as a sneaker town, there are few actual shoe companies headquartered in the Bayou City. One that is up and running is Veloci Running, an innovative enterprise that combines the founder’s history as a track runner for Rice University with the realities of running in a changing world.

Tyler Strothman started running cross country growing up in Wisconsin and Indiana before moving to Texas to attend Rice in 2020. Naturally, his college life was altered significantly by the COVID-19 pandemic. Unfortunately, Strothman contracted the virus, leading to pneumonia and causing him to consider other plans for his future.

One thing that stood out from Strothman’s running career was how bad his shoes fit.

“Traditional shoes narrowed in, cramped the front of my feet, and it was causing foot pain,” he said in a video interview. “But any other shoes that were shaped to better fit the natural foot shape were more barefoot (style)—they were more minimalist overall. And that was hurting my calf and Achilles. It was pulling on it, kind of like a rubber band.”

Strothman decided to start Veloci and went on to win the annual Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge in 2025. The win secured $50,000 in startup money, which Strothman used to immediately launch his new runner-centered shoe design with himself as the CEO at the age of 24.

Along for the jog was Strothman’s college friend, Austin Escamilla, who serves as chief operating officer. Escamilla believed in Strothman’s vision, but the project immediately ran into snags beyond Veloci’s control, particularly with manufacturing in Asia.

“It was quite a year to start a shoe business, especially dealing with tariffs and global economic trade tensions,” he said in the same video interview. “We've luckily had some really good partners and really solid advisors throughout the journey who've either done it or had some good feedback and advice. It certainly takes a village, but every day is different. So, it's fun to come into work every day and problem solve.”

The flagship Veloci shoe is the Ascent, which comes in both men’s and women’s sizes. It combines the wide toe cage that Strothman wanted with extra support cushion for a softer, easier run. They retail at $180. Strothman has personally been testing them for a year, noticing reduced lower leg pain when he runs.

At the same time, Veloci has attended to some of the more unique running problems in Houston and other hot, Southern states. A combination of heat and humidity makes for a very soggy shoe if not designed with such environments in mind. The Ascent is built to be very open and breathable, allowing hot air to flow and keeping sweat from building up. These various comfort improvements have made the Ascent Strothman’s favorite running shoe.

“I put on more pairs of this Veloci shoe than I have in my other running shoes in the last seven years,” he said

Currently, Veloci is still a very niche brand. Since the company launched last year, they’ve sold roughly 10,000 pairs. Those sales come either directly through their website or from specialty running stores, most of which are located around the Houston area, like Clear Creek Running Company in League City.

Building community around the shoe through these specialty retailers has been a prime marketing strategy. Part of the $50,000 grant went to a custom van that Veloci can take to various 5Ks, runs and events to get people interested in the brand. The personal touch has helped news of Veloci spread through the running world.

“We went to many run clubs throughout the last year,” said Escamillia. “We've been to pretty much every one of the major run clubs at least once or twice. Folks who try on the shoes, love them, become fans and post and repost…. The marketing side's been a lot of fun.”

Intuitive Machines lands $180M NASA contract for lunar delivery mission

to the moon

NASA has awarded Intuitive Machines a $180.4 million Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) award to deliver science and technology to the moon.

This is the fifth CLPS award the Houston spacetech company has received from NASA, according to a release. It will be the first mission to utilize Intuitive Machines' larger cargo lunar lander, Nova-D.

Known as IM-5, the mission is expected to deliver seven payloads to Mons Malapert, a ridge near the Lunar South Pole, which is a "compelling location for future communications, navigation, and surface infrastructure," according to the release.

“We believe our space infrastructure provides the scalability and flexibility needed to support an increased cadence of new Artemis missions and advance national objectives. This CLPS award accelerates our expansion efforts as we build, connect, and operate the systems powering that infrastructure,” Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in the release. “We look forward to working closely with NASA to deliver mission success on IM-5 and to provide sustained operations and persistent connectivity in the cislunar environment and across the solar system.”

The delivery will include the Australian Space Agency’s lunar rover, known as Roo-ver, and another lunar rover from Honeybee Robotics, a part of Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. Intuitive Machines will also deliver chemical analysis instruments, radiation detectors and other technologies, as well as a capsule named Sanctuary that shows examples of human achievements.

Intuitive Machines previously completed its IM-1 and IM-2 missions, which put the first commercial lunar lander on the moon and achieved the southernmost lunar landing, respectively.

Its IM-3 mission is expected to deliver international payloads to the moon's Reiner Gamma this year. It’s IM-4 mission, funded by a $116.9 million CLPS award, is expected to deliver six science and technology payloads to the Moon’s South Pole in 2027.

The company also announced a $175 million equity investment to fuel growth earlier this month.

TotalEnergies exits U.S. offshore wind sector in $1B federal deal

Energy News

TotalEnergies, a French company whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, has agreed to redirect nearly $930 million in capital from two offshore wind leases on the East Coast to oil, natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) production.

In its agreement with the U.S. Department of the Interior, TotalEnergies has also promised not to develop new offshore wind projects in the U.S. “in light of national security concerns,” according to a department press release.

Federal agency hails ‘landmark agreement’

The Department of the Interior called the deal a “landmark agreement” that will steer capital “from expensive, unreliable offshore wind leases toward affordable, reliable natural gas projects that will provide secure energy for hardworking Americans.”

Renewable energy advocates object to what they believe is the Trump administration’s mischaracterization of offshore wind projects.

Under the Department of the Interior agreement, the federal government will reimburse TotalEnergies on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the leases, up to the amount that the energy company paid.

“Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in the announcement. “We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans' monthly bills while providing secure U.S. baseload power today — and in the future.”

TotalEnergies cites U.S. policy in move away from U.S. wind power

In the news release, Patrick Pouyanné, chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies, says the company was “pleased” to sign the agreement to support the Trump administration’s energy policy.

“Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States, in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees,” Pouyanné says.

TotalEnergies redirects capital to LNG, oil, and natural gas

TotalEnergies will use the $928 million it spent on the offshore wind leases for development of a joint venture LNG plant in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as for production of upstream oil in the Gulf of Mexico and for production of shale gas.

“These investments will contribute to supplying Europe with much-needed LNG from the U.S. and provide gas for U.S. data center development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the United States,” Pouyanné says.

TotalEnergies paid $133.3 million for an offshore wind lease at the Carolina Long Bay project off the coast of North Carolina and $795 million in 2022 for a lease covering a 1,545-megawatt commercial offshore wind facility off the coast of New Jersey.

“TotalEnergies’ studies on these leases have shown that offshore wind developments in the United States, unlike those in Europe, are costly and might have a negative impact on power affordability for U.S. consumers,” TotalEnergies said in a company-issued press release. “Since other technologies are available to meet the growing demand for electricity in the United States in a more affordable way, TotalEnergies considers there is no need to allocate capital to this technology in the U.S.”

Since 2022, TotalEnergies has invested nearly $12 billion to promote the development of oil, LNG, and electricity in the U.S. In 2025, TotalEnergies was the No. 1 exporter of LNG from the U.S.

Industry groups push back on offshore wind pullback

The American Clean Energy Association has pushed back on the Trump administration’s characterization of offshore wind projects.

“The offshore wind industry creates thousands of high-quality, good-paying jobs, and is revitalizing American manufacturing supply chains and U.S. shipyards,” Jason Grumet, the association’s CEO, said in December after the Trump administration paused all leases for large-scale offshore wind projects under construction in the U.S. “It is a critical component of our energy security and provides stable, domestic power that helps meet demand and keep costs low.”

Grumet added that President Trump’s “relentless attacks on offshore wind undermine his own economic agenda and needlessly harm American workers and consumers.” He called for passage of federal legislation that would prevent the White House “from picking winners and losers” in the energy sector and “placing political ideology” above Americans’ best interests.

The National Resources Defense Council offered a similar response to the offshore wind leases being paused.

“In its ongoing effort to prop up waning fossil fuels interests, the administration is taking wilder and wilder swings at the clean energy projects this economy needs,” said Pasha Feinberg, the council’s offshore wind strategist. “Investments in energy infrastructure require business certainty. This is the opposite. If the administration thinks the chilling impacts of this action are limited to the clean energy sector, it is sorely mistaken.”

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

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