2 Houston startups win big at SXSW 2025 pitch competition

winner, winner

Two Houston startups won the SXSW Pitch showcase in their respective categories. Photo via Getty Images

Houston had a strong showing at this week's SXSW Pitch showcase in Austin, with two local startups claiming top prizes in their respective categories.

Little Place Labs, a Houston space data startup, won the Security, GovTech & Space competition. Clean-tech company Helix Earth, which spun out of Rice University and was incubated at Greentown Labs, won in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest.

As one of SWSX's marquee events, held March 8-10, the pitch competition featured 45 finalists, selected from 589 applicants, in nine categories.

"We faced impressive competition from a well-chosen set of finalists, and we're honored to be chosen as the winners. One of the judges even commented, ‘Who knew you could make air conditioning sexy,’” Brad Husick, Helix's co-founder and chief business officer, said in a release.

Helix Earth was launched in 2022 and is known for its space capsule air filtration system that was co-developed for NASA. The commercial air conditioner add-on technology, now in a pilot phase, has been used to retrofit HVAC systems for commercial buildings and can save up to 50 percent of the net energy, cutting down on emissions and operating costs, according to the company. Its co-founder and CEO Rawand Rasheed was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy and Green Tech list for 2025.

“This win validates our mission to drive sustainable innovation in commercial air conditioning and beyond. We are excited about the future of Helix Earth and the impact we will have in reducing energy consumption and emissions," Rasheed said in a statement.

Little Place Labs echoed that sentiment with a post on LinkedIn celebrating the win.

"This all started with a simple mission: To deliver real-time space insights to help first responders, mission planners, and decision-makers act before problems arise,” the post read. "Today, that mission feels even stronger."

The company uses advanced AI and machine learning to deliver near-real-time space analytics for both ground and space-based applications. Its software aims to help first responders, mission planners and decision-makers detect anomalies and make informed decisions quickly. It was co-founded in 2020 at Oxford by Houstonian and CEO Bosco Lai and Gaurav Bajaj and participated in the 2023 AWS Space Accelerator.

Tempesst Droneworx, a veteran-owned software company that provides real-time contextual intelligence for early warning detection, took home the Best Speed Pitch prize.

Jesse Martinez, founder of invincible, and Anu Puvvada of KPMG were two judges representing Houston.

According to SXSW, 647 companies have participated in SXSW Pitch over the years, with over 93 percent receiving funding and acquisitions totaling nearly $23.2 billion. See the full list of 2025 winners here.

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24 Houston-based companies named best places to work by U.S. News

Best Places to Work

A new U.S. News & World Report ranking of the best employers has named 95 Texas companies among the best companies to work in the South, and two dozen of them are based right here in the Houston metro.

U.S. News' prestigious "2026-2027 Best Companies to Work For" ratings examine 3,900 public and privately owned companies across 14 industries to help employees and job seekers make decisions about workplaces that may be a good fit.

Each company is rated on a scale of 1-5 across six metrics: quality of pay and benefits; work-life balance and flexibility; job and company stability; physical and psychological comfort; belongingness and esteem; and career opportunities and professional development.

"Job seekers' definitions of 'best' evolve with their needs," said Carly Chase, vice president of Careers at U.S. News. "From new grads in the AI era and seasoned pros seeking a career change, to HR leaders researching organizational trends, the ratings are a central hub that highlights businesses that U.S. News found effectively support their staff."

The number of employers headquartered in the Houston area that made the cut for 2026-2027 has skyrocketed over previous years. A total of 24 local public and private companies made the list this year, up from 16 companies in 2024 and 11 in 2025.

The highest concentration of top employers is located in Houston proper (20), followed by two companies in The Woodlands and one each in Kingwood and Spring.

A few familiar names Houstonians will recognize include petroleum corporation Occidental (Oxy), oil and gas giant Chevron, electrical engineering and manufacturing company Powell Industries, and home builder David Weekley Homes.

Here are the remaining best Houston-based companies to work for:

  • PROS, Houston
  • EOG Resources, Houston
  • Targa Resources, Houston
  • TechnipFMC, Houston
  • Cheniere, Houston
  • DXP, Houston
  • Comfort Systems USA, Houston
  • Corebridge, Houston
  • Baker Hughes, Houston
  • KBR, Houston
  • CenterPoint Energy, Houston
  • Phillips 66, Houston
  • S&B, Houston
  • Cornerstone Home Lending, Houston
  • Farouk, Houston
  • Hines, Houston
  • Insperity, Kingwood
  • HPE, Spring
  • Sterling Infrastructure, The Woodlands
  • LGI Homes, The Woodlands
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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Venus Aerospace closes $91 million Series B to scale hypersonic engine

flight funding

Houston-based Venus Aerospace has closed a $91 million Series B round and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.

The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Associates, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity and other investors, according to a news release.

The investment comes about a year after Venus completed the first U.S. flight test of its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE). The engine is expected to enable vehicles to travel four to six times the speed of sound from a conventional runway and is about 15 percent more efficient than traditional alternatives, according to the company.

Venus Aerospace says the latest round of funding will allow it to move the RDRE from demonstration to deployment and meet customer requirements for the near-term defense and space industries. The company says that the reusable RDRE is designed with a "common propulsion architecture" that can work for multiple industries and mission types.

“This financing marks an important step in moving Venus from breakthrough demonstration to scaled capability,” Sassie Duggleby, co-founder and CEO, said in the news release. “Our customers need propulsion systems that go farther, can be produced reliably and are built on supply chains they can trust. We are advancing that capability with American engineering and manufacturing talent to strengthen U.S. defense, expand space access and support the future of high-speed flight.”

Venus Aerospace raised a $20 million Series A in 2022, led by Wyoming-based Prime Movers Lab. At the time, the company said it would put the funding toward three main technologies: a next-generation rocket engine, aircraft shape and leading-edge cooling system.

The company also picked up an investment from Lockheed Martin Ventures, the investment arm of aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin, in November 2025—in addition to funding from other investors over the years.

“Since our initial investment, Venus has progressed very quickly in its technology development," Chris Moran, vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin Ventures, added in the release. "Our reinvestment in Venus recognizes Venus’ accomplishments to date and focus on speed to manufacture, cost management and reduction of supply chain constraints. Venus is working effectively to position its propulsion system for the production scale required by defense programs.”

"Venus is exactly the kind of company Houston capital should be backing," Blair Garrou, co-founder and managing partner at Mercury Fund, added in the release. "It combines multiple frontier technologies, domestic manufacturing and clear commercial and national security relevance. We believe this team is positioned to lead an important new chapter in defense and space, and we are proud to support a company building breakthrough technology here in Texas."

Venus Aerospace and Houston clean tech startup Vaulted Deep were named to the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers community earlier this summer. Read more here.

Intuitive Machines lands $148M as part of NASA Moon Base funding

to the moon

Houston-based Intuitive Machines has been awarded $148.3 million to deliver its Nova-C lander to the moon by 2028. The funding is part of $600 million that NASA recently awarded to three companies as part of the agency’s Moon Base Program.

The contracts aim to support sustained human presence and commercial operations on the Moon. Austin-based Firefly Aerospace was awarded $144.2 million by NASA for one mission and Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic netted $297.9 million for two lunar landings. Intuitive Machine's award is the company's sixth task order under NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.

“We’re building a proving ground for Moon Base operations,” Ryan Stephan, NASA’s Moon Base acting director of cargo landers, said in a news release. “Accelerating our Moon mission ordering cadence and launch opportunities enable us to move quickly to learn, iterate, and improve.”

Under the latest task order, Intuitie Machines will deliver three scientific and operational payloads to the moon, which include a:

  • Linear Energy Transfer Spectrometer (LETS) radiation monitor to gather critical environmental safety data
  • Advanced stereo cameras to analyze surface-plume interactions (SCALPSS)
  • Laser retroreflector array (LRA) for precise cislunar positioning

The funding breakdown includes a $68.6 million base contract and a $79.7 million performance incentive for Intuitive Machines.

The company says the funding will allow it to create a standardized and repeatable "lunar utility pipeline" for delivering cargo to the moon.

"We are shifting the paradigm from custom aerospace engineering to commercial mass production of lunar infrastructure," Steve Altemus, CEO of Intuitive Machines, said in a separate news release. "Our flight-proven Nova-C platform allows us to build, test, and deploy multiple landers in parallel using Industry 4.0-powered manufacturing. This contract directly advances our core mission to provide persistent, reliable, and commercial baseline of transport, connectivity, and operations that allows our customers to stay longer and achieve more on the Moon."

NASA also shared that it is exploring plans to send PROMISE, a rover based on the Mars Perseverance and Curiosity rovers, to the moon and it plans to seek proposals for additional lunar lander missions, technology demonstrations, a communications and navigation satellite network, and new science payloads to support its lunar outpost. NASA is developing its Moon Base near the lunar South Pole. The agency expects it to come to fruition sometime after 2032.

Intuitive Machines had received its last CLPS award for $180.4 million in March 2026. It will be the first mission to utilize the company's larger cargo lunar lander, Nova-D. The company was also recently awarded a $1 million grant from Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to expand its robotics operations in the state.

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