Castle Biosciences CEO Derek Maetzold has something to be proud about. Photo courtesy of Castle Biosciences

Some Houston-area companies now have some major bragging rights — and perhaps, an influx of resumes on the way. Inc. magazine has released its new list of the country's 250 best-led midsize companies, and four Greater-Houston firms are in the spotlight.

The Houston-area companies are:

     
  • Castle Biosciences, Friendswood, No. 126
  • Sunova Energy, Houston, No. 156
  • Cactus Wellhead, Houston, No. 224
  • National Energy Services Reunited, Houston, No. 228

For those brushing up CVs or ready to invest, Castle Biosciences develops and commercializes diagnostic and prognostic tests for dermatologic cancers.

To compile the list, Inc. evaluated private and public U.S.-based companies with 2020 revenue of $50 million to $2 billion, or a valuation of $50 million to $10 billion. With help from Pitchbook and Shango Labs, Inc. sifted through data related to management excellence for more than 10,000 companies.

"This inaugural list of companies represents the remarkable mid-sized companies, both public and private, often founder-led, that are at the vanguard of reinventing American business," says Scott Omelianuk, editor-in-chief of Inc. magazine. "With their leadership, all businesses will benefit from an exciting, competitive future full of possibilities."

Bozeman, Montana-based software company Snowflake tops the Inc. list.

Elsewhere in Texas, An Austin company is generating buzz as the best-led midsize business in Texas. Dating app provider Bumble ranks first in Texas and 40th overall. Here's how the Austin companies fared overall:

  • Bumble, No. 40
  • BigCommerce, No. 70
  • YETI, No. 91
  • Digital Turbine, No. 101
  • Open Lending, No. 137
  • Everly Health, No. 150
  • The Zebra, No. 170
  • Helias Construction, No. 177
  • Cirrus Logic, No. 180

As for Dallas-Fort Worth, these companies landed on the list:

  • Goosehead Insurance Agency, Westlake, No. 148
  • The Container Store, Coppell, No. 153
  • Sabre, Southlake, No. 181
  • Trintech, Addison, No. 184
  • MB2 Dental, Carrollton, No. 203
------
This article originally ran on CultureMap.
Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Rice University MBA programs rank among top 5 in prestigious annual report

top of class

Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business MBA programs have been ranked among the top five in the country again in The Princeton Review’s 2025 Best Business Schools rankings.

The university's MBA program in finance earned a No. 3 ranking, climbing up two spots from its 2024 ranking. Finance MBA programs at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business and New York University's Leonard N. Stern School of Business were the only ones to outrank Rice, claiming No. 2 and No. 1 spots, respectively.

Rice's online MBA program was ranked No. 5, compared to No. 4 last year. Indiana University's Bloomington Kelley School of Business' online program claimed the top spot.

“These rankings reflect the commitment of our faculty and staff, the drive and talent of our students and the strong support of our alumni and partners,” Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business, said in a news release. “They are exceptional honors but also reminders — not just of our top-tier programs and world-class faculty and students but of our broader impact on the future of business education.”

Rice also ranked at No. 6 for “greatest resources for minority students."

The Princeton Review’s 2025 business school rankings are based on data from surveys of administrators at 244 business schools as well as surveys of 22,800 students enrolled in the schools’ MBA programs during the previous three academic years.

"The schools that made our lists for 2025 share four characteristics that inform our criteria for designating them as 'best': excellent academics, robust experiential learning components, outstanding career services, and positive feedback about them from enrolled students we surveyed," Rob Franek, The Princeton Review's editor-in-chief, said in a press release. "No b-school is best overall or best for all students, but to all students considering earning an MBA, we highly recommend these b-schools and salute them for their impressive programs."

Rice's finance program has ranked in the top 10 for eight consecutive years, and its online MBA has ranked in the top five for four years.

Rice and the University of Houston also claimed top marks on the Princeton Review's entrepreneurship rankings. Rice ranks as No. 1 on the Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Grad list, and the University of Houston ranked No. 1 on Top 50 Entrepreneurship: Ugrad. Read more here.

Houston named ‘star’ metro for artificial intelligence in new report

eyes on AI

A new report declares Houston one of the country’s 28 “star” hubs for artificial intelligence.

The Houston metro area appears at No. 16 in the Brookings Institution’s ranking of metros that are AI “stars.” The metro areas earned star status based on data from three AI buckets: talent, innovation and adoption. Only two places, the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, made Brookings’ “superstar” list.

According to Brookings, the Houston area had 11,369 job postings in 2024 that sought candidates with AI skills, 210 AI startups (based on Crunchbase data from 2014 to 2024), and 113 venture capital deals for AI startups (based on PitchBook data from 2023 to 2024).

A number of developments are boosting Houston’s AI profile, such as:

Brookings also named Texas’s three other major metros as AI stars:

  • No. 11 Austin
  • No. 13 Dallas-Fort Worth
  • No. 40 San Antonio

Brookings said star metros like Houston “are bridging the gap” between the two superstar regions and the rest of the country. In 2025, the 28 star metros made up 46 percent of the country’s metro-area employment but 54 percent of AI job postings. Across the 28 metros, the number of AI job postings soared 139 percent between 2018 and 2025, according to Brookings.

Around the country, dozens of metros fell into three other categories on Brookings’ AI list: “emerging centers” (14 metros), “focused movers” (29 metros) and “nascent adopters” (79 metros).