3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's Houston innovators to know include Yared Akalou of Alcove Group, Serafina Lalany,of Houston Exponential, and Patrick Lewis of Sustainability Ventures Group. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: This week's group of Houston innovators you need to know might be pretty familiar to you, however each of them have a new endeavor they are excited to launch — from an energy investment group with a new name to new virtual platforms to benefit entrepreneurs.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group

Yared Akalou founded IAmOther50 to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. Photo courtesy of Alcove

Yared Akalou describes himself as a designer-focused entrepreneur. As founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group, his latest venture, IAmOther50, is a platform for creatives and freelancers to connect to work. This innovation he's focused on is in light of the growth in jobs that are freelance and remote.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way." Read more.

Serafina Lalany, chief of staff at Houston Exponential

Serafina Lalany joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the HTX TechList, which launches this week. Photo courtesy of Serafina Lalany

Serafina Lalany is pinpoint focused on creating resources for Houston innovators through her work at Houston Exponential. Most recently, that's meant creating and launching the HTX TechList, which went live last week. For her, one of the most important benefits the platform will afford the city is access to data about the ecosystem.

"We needed a centralized datasource classifying startups, investors, startup development organizations, and corporate innovators," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "There was not any good resource on the internet that was verified, centralized, and adhered to a data standard." Read more and stream the episode.

Patrick Lewis, managing partner of Sustainability Ventures Group

Houston-based Sustainability Ventures Group is focused on connecting energy companies to innovative, sustainable solutions. Photo courtesy of SVG

As Patrick Lewis started to get a feel for what his network within the energy industry was looking for amid the pandemic, he thought some of the sustainability-focused ventures might be on the back burner.

"We thought we would hear that sustainability in this environment may have slipped down the priority list, but it was the exact opposite," Lewis says. "Pretty consistently across all the operators, sustainability, reducing emissions, and greenhouse gases — those are all even more important today."

This confirmation that the energy industry is committed to innovative sustainability projects led Lewis to rebrand his energy tech investment group from BBL Ventures to Sustainability Ventures Group, or SVG. The investment team focuses on reverse engineering the startup innovation process by sourcing the concerns and goals of the energy companies, then finding solutions from the startup world through reverse pitch competitions and challenges. Read more.

Houston-based Sustainability Ventures Group is focused on connecting energy companies to innovative, sustainable solutions. Photo via Getty Images

Houston energy tech investment group rebrands to address sustainability

Seeing green

As the pandemic took its hold on the economy and the energy industry's commodity crisis did its damage, Patrick Lewis understandably assumed that maybe sustainability initiatives might be on the back burner for his network of energy companies.

"We thought we would hear that sustainability in this environment may have slipped down the priority list, but it was the exact opposite," Lewis says. "Pretty consistently across all the operators, sustainability, reducing emissions, and greenhouse gases — those are all even more important today."

This confirmation that the energy industry is committed to innovative sustainability projects led Lewis to rebrand his energy tech investment group from BBL Ventures to Sustainability Ventures Group, or SVG. The investment team focuses on reverse engineering the startup innovation process by sourcing the concerns and goals of the energy companies, then finding solutions from the startup world through reverse pitch competitions and challenges.

"We're not fundamentally changing our business model or investment strategy, but we just wanted to make sure our messaging was crystal clear," Lewis tells InnovationMap.

Lewis says he and his team really thought through the definition of sustainability, and he specifies that, "we're not doing this to go chase solar or wind power — those are on the table — but we think there are two primary opportunities: Digital transformation and emerging technologies in the existing fossil fuel industry and the low carbon value chain," Lewis says.

He adds that oil and gas is going to be around for a long time still, and he cites that by 2040, it's predicted that 40 percent of energy will still come from fossil fuels. It's the big energy companies and providers — which he's working with — that have the power to move the needle on these changes.

"We think there's a real opportunity to pursue efficiencies and reduce emissions and footprint in that existing traditional oil and gas sector," he says.

Earlier this year, Lewis was addressing these concerns by working on standing up a group of industry experts for regular meetings to discuss innovation needs. What started as a call with a handful of people, now hosts 40 people across 14 energy operator and major tech platforms.

"The whole purpose of this group is to share best practices, collaborate on common pain points, risk manage pilots," Lewis says. "We continue to build that group — it's going to be a nonprofit governed by a steering committee."

While SVG has held off on its reverse pitch events, the organization along with the University of Houston Center for Carbon Management submitted a proposal to host the National Science Foundation's Convergence Acceleratoronvergence Accelerator virtual conference at the end of September.

"The goal is to bring together multidisciplinary stakeholders — industry, nonprofit, academics, NGOs, public policy experts — to solve big problems," Lewis says. "Sustainability is a problem they really want to address."

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Houston ranks among world’s top 30 emerging startup ecosystems

Startup Status

Long known as the Energy Capital of the World, Houston also ranks among the world’s top 30 emerging startup ecosystems, according to a new report.

The report from Startup Genome, a research and advisory organization, doesn’t assign a specific numeric ranking to Houston’s startup ecosystem. Rather, it puts Houston in the ranking range of 21 to 30 for emerging ecosystems. Startup Genome weighed factors such as early-stage funding, performance and talent to identify the top emerging ecosystems.

Houston also gained notice for being one of the world’s 20 emerging ecosystems with at least four unicorn startups in the past 10 years. Houston and nine other ecosystems each had four unicorns.

According to StartupBlink, a startup research platform, Houston’s startup ecosystem grew 24 percent in 2025, with over 1,300 startups and total startup funding exceeding $808 million. StartupBlink places Houston at No. 46 among the world’s top 100 startup ecosystems.

In a recent post on LinkedIn, David Horsup, executive in residence at the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, wrote that Houston “has all the ingredients to be wildly successful if it stays true to its differentiated pillars that drive the economy — energy, medical, and aerospace.”

Mumbai topped Startup Genome’s list of emerging ecosystems, followed by Istanbul, Madrid, Salt Lake City-Provo and Barcelona. After Salt Lake City-Provo, the top U.S. ecosystems were Phoenix, Detroit, Minneapolis and Las Vegas.

Silicon Valley led Startup Genome’s ranking of the world’s top established ecosystems, followed by New York City, London, Tel Aviv and Boston. Austin landed at No. 18 in this category and Dallas at No. 27.

“For much of the past decade, this report has chronicled the welcome dispersion of opportunity beyond the traditional hubs,” Startup Genome writes. “That trend has not died — but it has been complicated. Capital and scale are consolidating once more, particularly in the United States, and the gap between leading and emerging ecosystems is widening.”

KBR names C-suite duo to lead $5.3B government services spinoff

new leaders

In advance of the spinoff of its Mission Technology Solutions unit, Houston-based KBR has made two C-suite hires for the new business.

Michael LaRouche is coming aboard as president and CEO of the spinoff, currently called SpinCo, on Sept. 26. Nicholas Veasey is joining as executive vice president and chief financial officer on July 1.

“Michael and Nick bring a highly complementary combination of operational leadership, financial expertise, and mission-driven experience, and together they will accelerate our impact for stakeholders,” Stuart Bradie, chairman, president and CEO of publicly traded KBR, said in a news release.

LaRouche currently is CEO of Serco North America, a Herndon, Virginia-based government services contractor. Veasey most recently was CFO of MAG Aerospace, a Fairfax, Virginia-based defense contractor.

SpinCo, a government services contractor, will launch with more than $5.3 billion in annual revenue and 20,000 employees. KBR’s total headcount is around 36,000. Branding for SpinCo, including a formal name, will be revealed in July.

“SpinCo is positioned as a top-tier provider of differentiated technology solutions, anchored by deep mission expertise, global scale, and a relentless commitment to delivering for our customers,” LaRouche says.

After the spinoff, the slimmed-down KBR will focus on its Sustainable Technology Solutions business, a provider of energy and industrial technology that generated $2.5 billion in revenue in 2025. Bradie will remain chairman, president and CEO of the business.

Both SpinCo and the new KBR will be public companies. The spinoff is scheduled to be completed in January.

Experts: Houston's VC ecosystem has set the foundation — now we need scale

guest column

Fervo Energy went public earlier this summer. The Houston geothermal company priced its IPO at $27 per share, raised $1.89 billion, and opened the next morning at a market capitalization north of $10 billion. By most measures, it is the largest venture-backed cleantech IPO in history and an unambiguous win for Houston. It’s also a useful moment to look at where Houston's venture ecosystem stands and where it can go. The highlight: Houston's venture ecosystem has real foundations and, with increased company formation activity, can grow into the scale our city's ambitions deserve.

A Houston energy story in the national recovery

The recent uptick in Houston venture activity follows national trends. U.S. venture deal count contracted roughly 22 percent from its 2021 peak through 2024 before rebounding to about 16,700 rounds in 2025. Houston's 23 percent increase in VC funding from 2023 to 2024 is part of a national recovery of comparable magnitude over the same time window.

The energy sector is where Houston exhibits unique trends—and where the story turns clearly positive. (Houston's strong health and space sectors deserve their own separate consideration.) By deal count, energy-related rounds have accounted for 15 to 20 percent of Houston activity, roughly consistent over the past few years.

By capital, energy's share surged from about 14 percent in 2023 to over 60 percent in 2025, driven by a small number of large Houston-headquartered rounds, primarily in geothermal and related technologies. Fervo is the obvious anchor, but Sage Geosystems, Quaise Energy, Zeta Energy, Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon and Mariana Minerals have all closed meaningful rounds. Houston is concentrated and accelerating as an energy capital market, an invaluable position to build upon.

From foundation to scale

The institutional pieces are in place. Greentown Labs, Activate, the Ion and others have built sector-specialized infrastructure most cities would struggle to assemble. Fervo itself is an alum of both Activate and Greentown Labs. Mercury Fund closed its $160 million Fund V, its largest ever. Houston Angel Network, GOOSE Capital, Fathom Fund, and broader pre-seed and seed capital coverage are here. The Houston $10 million-plus Series A list now includes 40 rounds since 2021, which break roughly into two eras. While 2021 to 2022 was biotech-heavy, with companies like Sporos Bioventures, RadioMedix, Cellenkos and Coya Therapeutics, 2024 to 2025 has tilted clearly toward energy, climate, and critical minerals, with Vaulted Deep, Applied Carbon, Mariana Minerals, Sage Geosystems and Ignis H2 Energy among them.

What’s less developed is the volume of seed-stage companies flowing into that capital. Imagine a dozen more Fervos coming out of that infrastructure over the next decade, each generating jobs, recycled founder capital, and the next wave of operators and angel investors. That is the kind of opportunity Houston has within reach if we build the company-formation pipeline to feed it. To be relevant on the national stage as a venture market, and to drive an economy the size of Houston's into the 2030s, the city needs to be doing closer to 20 Series A rounds per month rather than per year. That throughput implies roughly 1,000 seed rounds per year, feeding the funnel at a 20 percent to 30 percent graduation rate. Reaching such throughput depends on how many new founders Houston produces and how quickly our innovation ecosystem can help them achieve lift-off.

Houston in context

The comparative picture brings the scaling challenge into focus. Between 2021 and 2024, Houston-area startups closed between 126 and 153 disclosed venture rounds per year, against a national count between 9,854 and 14,125. That places Houston at a little over 1 percent of the U.S. deal count. For comparison, Austin ran about three times Houston's deal count each year.

At the Series A level, Houston closed between 12 and 24 rounds in any given year. The median Houston Series A across the period was about $10.7 million, compared with $15.4 million in San Francisco. Houston founders are raising fewer and smaller Series A rounds than founders in peer metros, which points directly to where Houston has the most room to grow.

The unicorn picture tells the same story. From 2021 through 2025, the U.S. produced 590 venture-backed unicorns. Four were Houston-based: Solugen and Axiom Space in 2021, Cart.com in 2023, and Fervo Energy in 2024. Adding HighRadius from 2020 brings Houston's all-time total to five. Austin added 19 over the same five-year window. The path from here is to make Houston's entries on lists like these less the exception and more the rule.

Where this leads

Houston has a real opportunity to become the deepest, most credible energy and climate capital market in the country, with the company formation, talent and operator density to support it. The data shows the foundation is already in place. Fervo, Solugen and the growing roster of energy-adjacent Series A graduates are proof. Fervo's IPO is the first of what should be many. Houston has not had a venture-backed cleantech liquidity event of this scale before, and the city now has one to reference, recruit against and build on. With increased company formation at the seed and pre-seed stages, a Fervo-scale outcome need not be a generational event in Houston, but instead, it can become part of a chain reaction powering the city's economy.

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Stephanie T. Schmidt, PhD, is the founder of a stealth startup, a Venture Fellow at Energy Transition Ventures, and an Executive MBA candidate at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. Lawson Gow is the Chief Operating Officer of Greentown Labs. The full Houston VC landscape report is available at Energy Transition Ventures and CleanTech.Org.

Sources: Crunchbase, PitchBook-NVCA, Carta
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