Houston-based femtech company announces first locations outside of Texas

growing tech

Houston-based Work & Mother is growing. Photo courtesy of Work & Mother

Houston-based Work & Mother, which outfits commercial buildings with lactation accommodations for working parents, announced this month that it has entered into an agreement to open two new lactation suites outside the state of Texas.

The company will open suites in two commercial office buildings in Boston, Massachusetts, and Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. The new suites are expected to be completed this summer.

Work & Mother currently has suites in Allen Center, The Jones on Main and Four Oaks Place in Houston, as well as East Lake at Tillery in Austin and Lincoln Centre in Dallas.

The Work & Mother suites allow parents to book time to pump in a private room in the comfortable, well-designed suites through the Work & Mother app. Each private room is equipped with a hospital-grade pump, milk storage bags, sanitizing wipes, and other supplies while the full Work & Mother Suite lounge area includes cleaning stations and refrigerated milk storage.

The suites also serve commercial properties and employers by providing them with the resources to adhere to federal labor laws—as well as reduce HR risks, and retain female employees—by having a dedicated space with lactation amenities for employees.

When founder and CEO Abby Donnell spoke with InnovationMap in 2021, she said that Work & Mother was planning for national expansion.

"We look forward to supporting more new mothers' return to work and providing the real estate services that office tenants and landlords need in a post-pandemic world to promote wellness, flexibility, and inclusion in the workplace," she said.

In addition to the new location in Boston and Arlington, the company is planning locations in San Francisco, Chicago, Miami and New York, according to Work & Mother's website.

The company is also adding new services for working and lactating parents through a recent partnership with Nest Collaborative, a national virtual lactation consultation platform, announced last month.

The partnership will provide Work & Mother app users with access to Nest Collaborative's board-certified lactation consultants through telehealth appointments, available seven days a week.

The services through Nest Collaborative are part of Work & Mother's resource center called The HUB, which also provides career and personal coaching, mental health resources, and downloadable guides.

"We are confident that our partnership with Nest Collaborative will have a measurable impact on the breastfeeding success rates of parents who work outside the home," Donnell said in a statement. "I'm looking forward to broadening our ability to support working parents at any time, anywhere."

The Waffle Bus' brick-and-mortar location is NextSeed Space's first tenant. Courtesy of NextSeed

Houston-based online fundraising platform launches new turnkey retail space opportunity

what's next for NextSeed

Houston-based NextSeed makes it easier for retail and restaurant startups to get funding, and the company is releasing a new line of services to help these startups on the next step after funding: Finding retail space.

NextSeed Space now exists to help consumer-facing companies have access to move-in-ready spaces with short-term leases. The idea is to give the concept a low-risk place to debut their business, generate customers, and work out the kinks of their business model before locking in a permanent location.

"One of the biggest hurdles for a small business is the build-out process," Abe Chu, CMO of NextSeed says in the release. "A talented chef or designer might be very skilled at their craft, but many other factors are critical to opening a storefront including the capital raise, lease negotiation, design, permitting, construction and marketing. Finding ways to assist the entrepreneur in reducing complexity and controlling risks at this juncture is critical."

NextSeed has partnered with Greenway Plaza, where it offices, to bring turnkey retail space in The Hub, a new, recently renovated space in the office park.

The first NextSeed Space tenant is Houston's The Waffle Bus, which just raised $107,000 on the NextSeed fundraising platform. While the company has a popular brand and fleet of trucks, retail space has changed in Houston, and leasing companies are looking for safe tenants, the release says, meaning it's become more difficult for new tenants to find an ideal space.

"We see what's happening in the marketplace as our window to minimize obstacles for everyone's gain," Chu says in the release. "You've got creative small businesses that lack experience and funds, banks and investors that rely on longer leases for capital, and landlords who are not always equipped to handle the additional time and resources necessary to curate and nurture a revolving mix of pop-up tenants."

NextSeed's fundraising platform launched around four years ago and, since then, has helped almost 50 companies raise money totaling more than $10 million. NextSeed co-founder and CEO, Youngro Lee, spoke to InnovationMap last fall about how the company has grown and is always looking to expand.

"The goal was for NextSeed to keep innovating and bring in new technologies and processes," Lee says.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Innovative Houston-area hardtech startup closes $5M seed round

fresh funding

Conroe-based hardtech startup FluxWorks has closed a $5 million seed round.

The funding was led by Austin-based Scout Ventures, which invests in early-stage startups working to solve national security challenges.

Michigan Capital Network also contributed to the round from its MCN Venture Fund V. The fund is one of 18 selected by the Department of Defense and Small Business Administration to participate in the Small Business Investment Company Critical Technologies Initiative, which will invest $4 billion into over 1,700 portfolio companies.

FluxWorks reports that it will use the funding to drive the commercialization of its flagship Celestial Gear technology.

"At Scout, we invest in 'frontier tech' that is essential to national interest. FluxWorks is doing exactly that by solving critical hardware bottlenecks with its flagship Celestial Gear technology ... This is about more than just gears; it’s about strengthening our industrial infrastructure," Scout Ventures shared in a LinkedIn post.

Fluxworks specializes in making contactless magnetic gears for use in extreme conditions, which can enhance in-space manufacturing. Its contactless design leads to less wear, debris and maintenance. Its technology is particularly suited for space applications because it does not require lubricants, which can be difficult to control at harsh temperatures and in microgravity.

The company received a grant from the Texas Space Commission last year and was one of two startups to receive the Technology in Space Prize, funded by Boeing and the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), in 2024. It also landed $1.2 million through the National Science Foundation's SBIR Phase II grant this fall.

Fluxworks was founded in College Station by CEO Bryton Praslicka in 2021. Praslicka moved the company to Conroe 2024.

5 Houston scientists named winners of prestigious Hill Prizes 2026

prized research

Five Houston scientists were recognized for their "high-risk, high-reward ideas and innovations" by Lyda Hill Philanthropies and the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology (TAMEST).

The 2026 Hill Prizes provide seed funding to top Texas researchers. This year's prizes were given out in seven categories, including biological sciences, engineering, medicine, physical sciences, public health and technology, and the new artificial intelligence award.

Each recipient’s institution or organization will receive $500,000 in direct funding from Dallas-based Lyda Hill Philanthropies. The organization has also committed to giving at least $1 million in discretionary research funding on an ad hoc basis for highly-ranked applicants who were not selected as recipients.

“It is with great pride that I congratulate this year’s Hill Prizes recipients. Their pioneering spirit and unwavering dedication to innovation are addressing some of the most pressing challenges of our time – from climate resilience and energy sustainability to medical breakthroughs and the future of artificial intelligence,” Lyda Hill, founder of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, said in a news release.

The 2026 Houston-area recipients include:

Biological Sciences: Susan M. Rosenberg, Baylor College of Medicine

Rosenberg and her team are developing ways to fight antibiotic resistance. The team will use the funding to screen a 14,000-compound drug library to identify additional candidates, study their mechanisms and test their ability to boost antibiotic effectiveness in animal models. The goal is to move toward clinical trials, beginning with veterans suffering from recurrent infections.

Medicine: Dr. Raghu Kalluri, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

Kalluri is developing eye drops to treat age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of vision loss globally. Kalluri will use the funding to accelerate studies and support testing for additional ocular conditions. He was also named to the National Academy of Inventors’ newest class of fellows last month.

Engineering: Naomi J. Halas, Rice University

Co-recipeints: Peter J. A. Nordlander and Hossein Robatjazi, Rice University

Halas and her team are working to advance light-driven technologies for sustainable ammonia synthesis. The team says it will use the funding to improve light-driven catalysts for converting nitrogen into ammonia, refine prototype reactors for practical deployment and partner with industry collaborators to advance larger-scale applications. Halas and Nordlander are co-founders of Syzygy Plasmonics, and Robatjazi serves as vice president of research for the company.

The other Texas-based recipients include:

  • Artificial Intelligence: Kristen Grauman, The University of Texas at Austin
  • Physical Sciences: Karen L. Wooley, Texas A&M University; Co-Recipient: Matthew Stone, Teysha Technologies
  • Public Health: Dr. Elizabeth C. Matsui, The University of Texas at Austin and Baylor College of Medicine
  • Technology: Kurt W. Swogger, Molecular Rebar Design LLC; Co-recipients: Clive Bosnyak, Molecular Rebar Design, and August Krupp, MR Rubber Business and Molecular Rebar Design LLC

Recipients will be recognized Feb. 2 during the TAMEST 2026 Annual Conference in San Antonio. They were determined by a committee of TAMEST members and endorsed by a committee of Texas Nobel and Breakthrough Prize Laureates and approved by the TAMEST Board of Directors.

“On behalf of TAMEST, we are honored to celebrate the 2026 Hill Prizes recipients. These outstanding innovators exemplify the excellence and ambition of Texas science and research,” Ganesh Thakur, TAMEST president and a distinguished professor at the University of Houston, added in the release. “Thanks to the visionary support of Lyda Hill Philanthropies, the Hill Prizes not only recognize transformative work but provide the resources to move bold ideas from the lab to life-changing solutions. We are proud to support their journeys and spotlight Texas as a global hub for scientific leadership.”

Investment bank opens new Houston office focused on energy sector

Investment bank Cohen & Co. Capital Markets has opened a Houston office to serve as the hub of its energy advisory business and has tapped investment banking veteran Rahul Jasuja as the office’s leader.

Jasuja joined Cohen & Co. Capital Markets, a subsidiary of financial services company Cohen & Co., as managing director, and head of energy and energy transition investment banking. Cohen’s capital markets arm closed $44 billion worth of deals last year.

Jasuja previously worked at energy-focused Houston investment bank Mast Capital Advisors, where he was managing director of investment banking. Before Mast Capital, Jasuja was director of energy investment banking in the Houston office of Wells Fargo Securities.

“Meeting rising [energy] demand will require disciplined capital allocation across traditional energy, sustainable fuels, and firm, dispatchable solutions such as nuclear and geothermal,” Jasuja said in a news release. “Houston remains the center of gravity where capital, operating expertise, and execution come together to make that transition investable.”

The Houston office will focus on four energy verticals:

  • Energy systems such as nuclear and geothermal
  • Energy supply chains
  • Energy-transition fuel and technology
  • Traditional energy
“We are making a committed investment in Houston because we believe the infrastructure powering AI, defense, and energy transition — from nuclear to rare-earth technology — represents the next secular cycle of value creation,” Jerry Serowik, head of Cohen & Co. Capital Markets, added in the release.

---

This article originally appeared on EnergyCaptialHTX.com.

View All Listings