Houston-based, female-focused VC closes $36M fund

fresh funding

The Artemis Fund has announced that it's closed its second fund. Courtesy photos

A women-led venture capital group based in Houston has closed its second fund to continue its mission of supporting female-founded startups in fintech, commerce, and care.

The Artemis Fund announced its $36 million second fund this month. Co-founded in 2019 by General Partner Stephanie Campbell, General Partner Diana Murakhovskaya, and Venture Partner Leslie Goldman Tepper, the firm has invested in more than 20 female-led startups — with over 60 percent with Black, Latinx, or immigrant leadership.

"Many funds have come to market that focus on diverse founders. Few are also funding the technology to address key barriers faced by overlooked businesses, communities, and families in the U.S.," Artemis leadership writes in a news release.

"Artemis invests in the big personal, every day, economic problems that Silicon Valley doesn’t understand or know how to solve," the release continues. "We see massive opportunity in what many VCs will quickly write off as too small, too fragmented, and too hard to solve. If it keeps families and small business owners up at night, we are likely backing a company solving it."

Artemis Fund II includes support from limited partners Bank of America, Bank of Montreal, TIAA Nuveen’s Churchill Asset Management, Texas Capital Bank, Amazon, The Rockwell Fund, and Ballentine Partners.

“The Artemis Fund is not only breaking down barriers themselves, but they are also investing in companies looking to catalyze change," Hong Ogle, Houston president at Bank of America, says in the release. "Artemis keenly understands how to identify and support diverse entrepreneurs, which ultimately helps us toward achieving our goal to advance economic opportunity for all our communities."

The second fund has already made investments in five startups:

  • Alameda, California-based Hello Divorce, a tech-enabled guide to divorce with research, planning, therapy, and community support.
  • Gemist, based in Los Angeles, provides tech tools to jewelers.
  • West Palm Beach, Florida-based Max Retail, a platform to sell leftover inventory.
  • Payverse, headquartered in Sherman Oaks, California, is a cross border payment processor leveraging their modern processing platform.
  • New York-based Builder's Patch, a software platform that streamlines the process to finance the development and preservation of affordable multifamily housing for CRE lenders and developers.

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A group of entrepreneurs, small business support groups, and more teamed up to create the Business Ecosystem Alliance for Minorities and Women, or BEAMW. Photo via beamw.org

Collaborative organization launches to support minority and female founders

BEAMW me up

A group of organizations — consisting of entrepreneurs, investors, chambers of commerce, business support organizations, and small business advocates — have teamed up to bridge the gap in resources for women- and minority-owned businesses.

The Business Ecosystem Alliance for Minorities and Women, or BEAMW, celebrated its launch on August 26 at a virtual event, and announced its anchor partner, Texas Capital Bank.

"At Texas Capital Bank, we truly believe small businesses are the heartbeat of the economy and we are thrilled BEAMW has formed to serve as a collaborative network, committed to serving entrepreneurs across our region today and inspiring those of tomorrow," says Jenny Guzman of Texas Capital Bank, in the news release. "Small business owners are the lifeblood of every community and we're proud to serve alongside BEAMW as partners in providing technical assistance, mentors and support as this collaborative grows and positively impacts the fabric of economy and business ecosystem."

The mission of BEAMW is to address the disparities these businesses face when seeking capital and attempting to scale their businesses. BEAMW was first ideated by the group being the Houston Small Business Community Report, which was created by the City of Houston's Women and Minority-Owned Business Task Force. Led by former Houston City Council Member, Amanda K. Edwards, and co-chaired by entrepreneurs Carolyn Rodz and Courtney Johnson Rose, the task force provided Mayor Sylvester Turner with recommendations about increasing increase access to capital for minority- and women-owned business enterprises and assisting these business owners in scaling up their businesses.

Minority-owned businesses have been denied loans at three times the rate of non-minority-owned firms, according to the report, and only 24 percent of small businesses are owned by Houston women.

"It is not enough to state that Houston is the most diverse city in the country; we must be the city where the challenges that diverse communities face are solved," Former City Council Member Amanda Edwards says in the release.

BEAMW and Texas Capital Bank's Community Impact together will create programming for the rest of the year, specifically focused on:

  • One on One Financial Preparedness Small Business Counseling
  • Business Networking Forums
  • Texas Capital Bank Bankers' Roundtables

More information about BEAMW — including how to get involved — may be found at beamw.org.

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Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo officially files for IPO

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Fervo Energy has officially filed for IPO.

The Houston-based geothermal unicorn filed a registration statement on Form S-1 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on April 17 to list its Class A common stock on the Nasdaq exchange. Fervo intends to be listed under the ticker symbol "FRVO."

The number and price of the shares have not yet been determined, according to a news release from Fervo. J.P. Morgan, BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets and Barclays are leading the offering.

The highly anticipated filing comes as Fervo readies its flagship Cape Station geothermal project to deliver its first power later this year

"Today, miles-long lines for gasoline have been replaced by lines for electricity. Tech companies compete for megawatts to claim AI market share. Manufacturers jockey for power to strengthen American industry. Utilities demand clean, firm electricity to stabilize the grid," Fervo CEO Tim Latimer shared in the filing. "Fervo is prepared to serve all of these customers. Not with complex, idiosyncratic projects but with a simplified, standardized product capable of delivering around-the-clock, carbon-free power using proven oil and gas technology."

Fervo has been preparing to file for IPO for months. Axios Pro first reported that the company "quietly" filed for an IPO in January and estimated it would be valued between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Fervo also closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of Cape Station last month and raised a $462 million Series E in December. The company also announced the addition of four heavyweights to its board of directors last week, including Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay, Hewlett-Packard, and Spring-based HPE.

Fervo reported a net loss of $70.5 million for the 2025 fiscal year in the S-1 filing and a loss of $41.1 million in 2024.

Tracxn.com estimates that Fervo has raised $1.12 billion over 12 funding rounds. The company was founded in 2017 by Latimer and CTO Jack Norbeck.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

New UT Austin med center, anchored by MD Anderson, gets $1 billion gift

Future of Health

A donation announced Tuesday, April 21, breaks a major record at the University of Texas at Austin. Michael and Susan Dell are now UT Austin's first supporters to give $1 billion. In response, the university will create the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research and the UT Dell Medical Center to "advance human health," per a press release.

The release also records "significant support" for undergraduate scholarships, student housing, and the Texas Advanced Computing Center for supercomputing research.

Both the new research campus and the UT Dell Medical Center will integrate advanced computing into their research and practices. At the medical center, the university hopes that will lead to "earlier detection, more precise and personalized care, and better health outcomes." The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center will also be integrated into the new medical center.

That comes with a numeric goal measured in 10s: raise $10 billion and rank among the top 10 medical centers in the U.S., both in the next decade.

In the shorter term, the university will break ground on the medical center with architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) "later this year."

“UT Austin, where Dell Technologies was founded from a dorm room, has always been a place where bold ideas become real-world impact,” said Michael and Susan Dell in a joint statement.

They continued, “What makes this moment so meaningful is the opportunity to build something that brings every part of the journey together — from how students learn, to how discoveries are made, to how care reaches families. By bringing together medicine, science and computing in one campus designed for the AI era, UT can create more opportunity, deliver better outcomes, and build a stronger future for communities across Texas and beyond.”

This is the second major gift this year for the planned multibillion-dollar medical center. In January, Tench Coxe, a former venture capitalist who’s a major shareholder in chipmaking giant Nvidia, and Simone Coxe, co-founder and former CEO of the Blanc & Otus PR firm, contributed $100 million$100 million.

Baylor scientist lands $2M grant to explore links between viruses and Alzheimer’s

Alzheimer’s research

A Baylor College of Medicine scientist will begin exploring the possible link between Alzheimer’s disease and viral infections thanks to a $2 million grant awarded in March.

Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa is an assistant professor of pathology & immunology at Baylor and a principal investigator at Texas Children’s Duncan Neurological Research Institute (Duncan NRI). He hypothesizes that Alzheimer’s may have some link to previous viral infections contracted by the patient. To study this intriguing possibility, the American Brain Foundation has gifted him the Cure One, Cure Many award in neuroinflammation.

“It is an honor to receive this support from the Cure One, Cure Many Award. Viral infections are emerging as a major, underappreciated driver of Alzheimer's disease, and this award will allow our team to conduct the most comprehensive screen of viral exposures and host genetics in Alzheimer's to date, spanning over a million individuals,” Dhindsa said in a news release. “Our goal is to identify which viruses matter most, why some people are more vulnerable than others, and ultimately move the field closer to new therapeutic strategies for patients.”

Roughly 150 million people worldwide will suffer from Alzheimer’s by 2050, making it the most common cause of dementia in the world. Despite this, scientists are still at a loss as to what exactly causes it.

Dhindsa’s research is part of a new range of theories that certain viral infections may trigger Alzheimer’s. His team will take a two-fold approach. First, they will analyze the medical records of more than a million individuals looking for patterns. Second, they will analyze viral DNA in stem cell-derived brain cells to see how the infections could contribute to neurological decay. The scale of the genomic data gathering is unprecedented and may highlight a link that traditional studies have missed.

Also joining the project are Dr. Caleb Lareau of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Dr. Artem Babaian of the University of Toronto. Should a link be found, it would open the door to using anti-virals to prevent or treat Alzheimer’s.

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