Tradeblock's three co-founders have known each other since childhood. Photo via tradeblock.us

A Houston-based company is kicking it with some fresh funding with plans to expand development of its marketplace platform.

Unique sneaker trading platform, Tradeblock, has raised $8.9 million in funding from investment partners Courtside VC, Trinity Ventures, and Concrete Rose Capital. Per the news release, the company expects additional funding of around $4.5 million to its seed round.

Tradeblock — founded in 2020 by self-proclaimed "sneakerheads" and childhood friends Mbiyimoh Ghogomu, Tony Malveaux, and Darren Smith — will use the fresh funding to expand and improve its digital marketplace for shoes.

"Tradeblock is revolutionizing the way forward for the new emergent asset class of footwear," says Tradeblock angel investor Jason Mayden, former Nike and Jordan footwear designer and president of Fear of God Athletics. "The founding team's understanding of the nuances of culture and tech gives them an unfair advantage in the industry and the team’s desire to lead with inclusion, representation, and authenticity also provides them with unique and meaningful organic engagement."

Over the past two years, Tradeblock has grown to have over a million shoes listed online. The team has also grown, and Tradeblock's workforce is over 80 percent people of color.

“Black and brown communities have always been the backbone of the sneaker industry and sneaker culture,” says Ghogomu, who also serves as CEO. “Showing those folks that they can be the owners and operators of this industry as opposed to just consumers is both a point of pride and a deeply rooted responsibility for everybody at Tradeblock.”

Authentication is a priority for the company, and the fresh funding will go toward further development of this type of technology within the platform.

"The market for fake sneakers is itself a billion-dollar market. If you're trying to acquire a shoe that's worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, you need to be absolutely certain that what you're getting is the real thing," Ghogomu previously told InnovationMap.

Tradeblock — launched in Houston by three childhood friends — coordinates sales of sneakers for collectors across the country. Image via tradeblock.us

Houston-based 'sneakerheads' kick off new app to revolutionize the biz

STEPPING UP

Mbiyimoh Ghogomu remembers the moment he fell in love with his first pair of sneakers in the eighth grade. Growing up, he says "frugality was a virtue" in his household. "I was not rocking heat on feet for most of my childhood," he explains. On a mission for new basketball shoes, he found a brand new pair of Adidas T-Mac IIs, and his entry into sneaker culture was sealed.

Like Ghogomu, his childhood friends Tony Malveaux and Darren Smith each had their own awakening into the sartorial fascination of sneakers. The self-proclaimed sneakerheads founded Tradeblock in 2020, a new sneaker trading platform that provides collectors with a secure way to collect and trade shoes. After a successful beta, the Houston-based startup has recently launched a new mobile app available for iOS and Android users.

Malveaux, co-founder and director of authentication, started growing his sneaker collection during his job at Footlocker and currently owns nearly 40 pairs.

"My first paycheck came the same day that the Foamposites dropped in the electrolime colorway and let's just say my check wasn't too much bigger than the retail price," says Malveaux.

The former retail employee was using the ESPN Trade Machine in 2009, a website that lets you play the role of a team manager by creating different trade scenarios for players, when the idea for Tradeblock came to him. Malveaux shared his idea with best friend Smith, co-founder and COO, and the two held it in their back pocket for a decade.

"An entrepreneur to his very core, D was slanging Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards all the way back in elementary school," says Ghogomu of Smith. "After spending a few years in the dark cubicles of corporate America following his college graduation, he realized that he would never be truly happy or fulfilled unless he was building his own thing," he says.

Smith eventually escaped those dark cubicles and approached Malveaux about making Tradeblock a reality. The two started an Instagram and began a cross-country trip, visiting every sneaker event they could to research the needs of the marketplace. To cover the cost of travel, they sold off the majority of the impressive sneaker collection they'd built over the years and sometimes slept in their car to avoid extra expenses.

That year, the two also brought in their high school friend Ghogomu as a co-founder and CEO.

Tradeblock's three co-founders have known each other since childhood. Photo via tradeblock.us

Tradeblock started with the three founders playing the middleman in trades through Instagram direct messages, and it soon grew into a fully functional web platform.

Kicks as currency

Sneaker collecting is no small expense, due in part to the enormous resale market. According to GQ, the coveted 2020 Dior x Air Jordan 1 sneakers retailed at $2,000 but skyrocketed to $10,103 at resale value. Even moderately priced items like the $140 Nike SB Dunk High "Reverse Skunk," a 4/20-themed release with a limited 420 pairs available, have a resale price of $4,500.

High demand and exclusivity have created a barrier to access. Some opportunists have even purchased online bots to scour websites for sneaker releases so they can make bulk purchases and resell the rest at premium costs.

"Besides the fact that nobody had taken on trading, which was already a known behavior in the sneaker community, we saw the exorbitant prices that sneakers were starting to sell at in the resell market," says Ghogomu. "We realized that a ton of true blue sneakerheads, people who were in the game for the love of kicks more than anything, were basically getting priced out of every shoe they wanted," he explains.

By providing a platform for sneaker collectors to trade shoes in their collection, the founders "could provide another outlet for them to acquire the shoes they wanted without having to spend next month's rent check," says Ghogomu.

The app allows you to explore other user collections, follow collectors to keep track of their newly added shoes, and create your own closet featuring your collection. "I think the biggest social aspect of our app today is the fact that sneakerheads can actually curate a unique profile and persona for themselves on Tradeblock, and then they can explore other sneakerheads' collections," says Ghogomu.

When wanting to pursue a trade, Tradeblock allows you to manage your offers from an inbox, review trade status, and review your trade history. Users can also negotiate monetary payment if a trade isn't quite equal with shoes alone.

Once a trade takes place, authentication is a priority.

"The market for fake sneakers is itself a billion-dollar market. If you're trying to acquire a shoe that's worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, you need to be absolutely certain that what you're getting is the real thing," says Ghogomu.

To ensure customers are getting authentic sneakers, Tradeblock has a "two-factor authentication" where every shoe goes through a physical and digital inspection.

More than a throwback

Sneaker collecting dates back to the late 1970s, coinciding with the surge in popularity of the National Basketball League and the hip hop movement of New York City.

The first-ever Air Jordans were created in 1984 and worn exclusively by former NBA star Michael Jordan, and released to the public in 1985. Just last year, Jordan's original pair sold for a record $560,000 in a Sotheby's auction, according to Reuters.

Music heavily influenced a profusion of sneakerheads. Run-DMC released the popular song "My Adidas" in 1986, which stayed on top of the Billboard music charts for 16 weeks. The trend carried into the aughts, with the rapper Nelly debuting his 2000 hit "Air Force Ones."

The shoe style has even succeeded in permeating internet culture, with a slew of memes and influencers arriving to meet the moment.

"Damn Daniel," a viral video from 2016, has solidified its place in the ever-evolving online vault of cultural moments. The video which shows then-high schooler Daniel Lara's shoe collection led him to become one of TIME's "30 Most Influential People on the Internet" that year.

Sneakerheads have since found a community using online communication platforms like Instagram, Discord, and Facebook.

"We also noticed that sneakerheads were spending a ton of time on social media platforms showing off their kicks, exploring other people's collections, and just generally looking to connect with people who shared their passion for shoes," explains Ghogomu. "We thought that if we could capture that social energy in a platform that also facilitated trading, we could create something truly revolutionary for the culture," he says.

The most popular sneaker reviewers on YouTube have grown communities of hundreds of thousands of followers, earning a living off their connoisseurship. "Shoe-tubers are an integral part of the sneaker culture today. In many ways, they're like the sherpas of the sneaker world," says Ghogomu.

The growing social authority of sneakerheads has also helped fuel Tradeblock's launch. The company has seen success in driving awareness by creating an online community and building relationships with influential YouTubers.

Existing online sellers from eBay to Poshmark have provided a way for users to sell and buy items, but the process is transactional. Understanding the passionate community of collectors, Ghogomu says they wanted to "build not just a product, but a company and brand that genuinely put the people first and harkened back to the days when being a sneakerhead was just as much about the community as it was about the kicks in your closet."

Growing a community

Tradeblock currently has more than 23,000 collectors in its database, a number that is steadily increasing by the day. "What has really blown me away is just how supportive people have been from [the] jump," says Ghogomu.

The app currently has thousands of shoes in its database, including rare releases like the Nike Dunk Lobster collection and the Art Basel Jordan 1.

"We've even got a few pairs of the original Jordan 1s in the Chicago colorway from 1985… but you'll have to come correct if you want to trade for those," jokes Ghogomu.

Through the roadblocks that come with building a startup, Tradeblock users have been loyal.

"I genuinely couldn't count the number of times we've heard people say things like, 'I want to see y'all win,' but we never get tired of it," he continues.

"When you're trying to build something unlike anything else that exists in the world, it's easy to let doubt creep in. Any entrepreneur who says they've never asked themselves the question, 'Is this really possible or are we insane?' is lying to you," says Ghogomu. "I think that as people of color, those internal barriers are even higher because we have so few examples to look to in terms of seeing people who look like us building massively successful businesses," he continues.

As the company grows, the co-founders hope to strengthen the bonds of the sneaker community — a common factor that has strengthened their own friendship.

"When most people think about sneaker culture, they think about the shoes. When we think about sneaker culture, we think about the people," says Ghogomu.

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Houston company awarded $2.5B NASA contract to support astronaut health and space missions

space health

Houston-based technology and energy solution company KBR has been awarded a $2.5 billion NASA contract to support astronaut health and reduce risks during spaceflight missions.

Under the terms of the Human Health and Performance Contract 2, KBR will provide support services for several programs, including the Human Research Program, International Space Station Program, Commercial Crew Program, Artemis campaign and others. This will include ensuring crew health, safety, and performance; occupational health services and risk mitigation research for future flights.

“This contract reinforces KBR’s leadership in human spaceflight operations and highlights our expertise in supporting NASA’s vision for space exploration,” Mark Kavanaugh, KBR president of defense, intel and space, said in a news release.

The five-year contract will begin Nov. 1 with possible extension option periods that could last through 2035. The total estimated value of the base period plus the optional periods is $3.6 billion, and the majority of the work will be done at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

“We’re proud to support NASA’s critical work on long-duration space travel, including the Artemis missions, while contributing to solutions that will help humans live and thrive beyond Earth,” Kavanaugh adde in the news release.

Recently, KBR and Axiom Space completed three successful crewed underwater tests of the Axiom Extravehicular Mobility Unit (AxEMU) at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL) at Johnson Space Center. The tests were part of an effort to help both companies work to support NASA's return to the Moon, according to a release.

KBR also landed at No. 3 in a list of Texas businesses on Time and Statista’s new ranking of the country’s best midsize companies.

UH receives $1M grant to advance research on rare pediatric disorder

peds research

The University of Houston has received a two-year, $1.1 million gift from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation to advance research on a rare genetic disorder that can lead to both deafness and blindness in children, known as Usher Syndrome.

The current grant will support the research of UH biomedical engineering professors Muna Naash and Muayyad Al-Ubaidi, who work in the Laboratory for Retinal Molecular and Cellular Biology and Gene Therapy in the Cullen College of Engineering. The professors have published their findings in the journal Nature Communications.

Naash and Al-Ubaidi’s research focuses on mutations in the USH2A gene, which is crucial to the development and maintenance of the inner ear and retina. The work was inspired by a chance meeting that changed Naash’s life.

“Our work began more than two decades ago when I met a young boy who had lost his both his vision and hearing, and it made me realize just how precious those two senses are, and it truly touched my heart,” Naash said in a news release from UH. “Thanks to the generosity of the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation, we can now take the next critical steps in our research and bring hope to families affected by this challenging condition.”

The grant from the foundation comes in addition to a previous $1.6 million award from the National Eye Institute in 2023, which helped create a research platform for innovative gene therapy approaches for the condition.

Usher Syndrome affects 25,000 people in the U.S. and is the most common genetic condition worldwide that impacts both hearing and vision in children. Currently, there is no cure for any of the main three types of the condition. UH believes support from the Cynthia and George Mitchell Foundation will help elevate research, advance real-world solutions in health and improve lives.

“What makes UH such a powerful hub for research is not just its own resources, but also its location and strategic partnerships, including those with the Texas Medical Center,” Al-Ubaidi said in a news release. “We have access to an extraordinary network, and that kind of collaborative environment is essential when tackling complex diseases like Usher syndrome, where no single lab can do it alone.”

Members-only coworking club Switchyards to open first Houston location

Where to Work

An innovative take on the coworking space is coming to Houston. Switchyards will open its first location in the Bayou City on Monday, September 29.

Located in the former Buffalo Exchange at 2901 S Shepherd Drive, Switchyards is well located on the border of Montrose, River Oaks, and Upper Kirby. Founded in Atlanta, the Houston location will join 30 outposts in cities such as Austin, Dallas, Denver, Kansas City, and Nashville.

Unlike WeWork, which caters to companies looking for office space for groups of employees, Switchyards pitches itself as a club for individuals who want to get a little work done away from their home offices.

“Working from home all the time is pretty lonesome,” Switchyards creative director Brandon Hinman says. “It feels good to have places to get out and mix it up. To change paces and change scenery.”

Switchyards facilitates that change of scenery with an environment that blends touches of hotel lobbies, college libraries, and coffee shops. As seen in the photos of the company’s other location, the furniture is a mix of desks, comfy chairs, and couches for individuals or small groups. It’s a far cry from the cube farms of the Office Space era.

“They tend to be historic, textured, layered,” Hinman says about the company’s locations. “A lot of really good furniture. Really thoughtful for getting a couple hours of work done.”

Each location features fast wi-fi, plenty of electrical outlets, and good quality coffee and tea. All 250 members have 24/7 access to the space. And by choosing the real estate they lease carefully, Switchyards keeps its membership price to $100 per month.

“Packaging it together like that and opening in these neighborhoods where people actually live has been pretty magical,” Hinman says. "The big opportunity, I think, is that 90 percent of our members have never had a shared space before. It is unlocking a new thing for people.”

Those who are interested in learning more can sign up at switchyards.com/houston-tx to get early access to memberships and an invite to a sneak peek party.

Memberships go on sale Thursday, September 25 at 10 am. Switchyards notes that the last 14 clubs have sold out on day one.

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This story originally appeared on CultureMap.com.