Editor's Picks: Top 10 Houston startup feature stories of the year

2020 in review

Mobile vet business, virtual reality for space, plant-based biotech, and more — all this innovation and more is coming out of Houston startups. Courtesy photos

Editor's note: As 2020 comes to a close, InnovationMap is looking back at the year's top stories in Houston innovation. This past year, InnovationMap featured profiles on dozens of these Houston startups — from blockchain and software companies to startups with solutions in health care and oil and gas. Here are excerpts of 10 that stood out throughout 2020 — be sure to click through to read the full story.

Houston health tech startup moves into new office amid major growth

BrainCheck has moved to a new office as it grows its team and expands its product. Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Following a series A round of fundraising, a Houston digital health startup is on a bit of a hiring spree, leading to new office space the company has room to grow into.

BrainCheck, which was founded in 2015 by neuroscientist David Eagleman, is a cognitive assessment startup that has developed a software tool for primary care doctors to use to assess their patients' cognitive health so that they can more quickly diagnose and treat them for maladies like dementia.

The 19-person company headquartered in Houston — with a secondary office in Austin focused on product development — has relocated its operations from coworking space in the Texas Medical Center to an office in the Rice Village area. The move was made possible by an $8 million series A financing round that closed in October.

"It's pretty exciting to have reached this milestone where we need more space," Yael Katz, co-founder and CEO of BrainCheck, tells InnovationMap. "We were pretty much bursting at the seams in our old office." Click here to continue reading.

Houston startup raises $30M, plans to be 'next iconic chemical company' with plant-based alternatives

Solugen, which uses plant-centered biotechnology to produce environmentally friendly chemicals, has raised an additional $30 million and is speculated to soon reach unicorn status. Photo via solugentech.com

While Forbes recently anointed Houston-based Solugen Inc. as one of the next billion-dollar "unicorns" in the startup world, Dr. Gaurab Chakrabarti shrugs off the unicorn buzz.

Chakrabarti, a physician and scientist who's co-founder and CEO of the startup, concedes he doesn't know whether Solugen will be worth $1 billion or not. But he does know that the startup aspires to be a key competitor in the emerging "climate tech" sector, whose players strive to combat climate change. Chakrabarti estimates the climate-tech chemical space alone represents a global market opportunity valued at $1 trillion to $2 trillion per year.

Solugen's overarching goal in the climate-tech market: Replace petroleum-based chemicals with plant-based substitutes.

"I'd love it if we were the poster child that drives climate tech to be the next big, sexy trend," Chakrabarti says.

Chakrabarti acknowledges Solugen's investors, executives, and employees hope the startup succeeds financially. But success, he believes, goes beyond making money and plotting an exit strategy. Instead, Chakrabarti emphasizes "a shift in thinking" on climate tech that he says promises to transform the fledgling sector into a "true niche" that'll be "good for everyone." Click here to continue reading.

Houston mobile vet company plans to roll out services statewide

A Houston vet has seen growth in business for her mobile vet company due to the pandemic. Now, she's planning major growth. Photo courtesy of Rollin' Vets

It's safe to say that the real winners of work-from-home trends that sparked due to the pandemic are our pets. Dogs and cats that were used to not seeing their owners for eight hours every work day now have 24-hour access to attention, treats, and ear scratches.

This increased attention pets are getting from their owners has also meant an increased awareness of pet health, says Katie Eick, founder of Houston-based Rollin' Vets, a startup that has mobilized veterinary services.

"People are home and observing their animals more. They're seeing and recognizing things they might not have if they were at work all day," Eick says.

That's, of course, not the only way the pandemic has affected business for Eick. She founded her company in 2016 and was seeing steady growth as delivery and on-demand services like Uber, DoorDash, etc. increased in use and awareness. Click here to continue reading.

With fresh funds, this Houston entrepreneur plans to scale his industrial e-commerce startup

Tim Neal, CEO of Houston-based GoExpedi, shares how his company plans to scale following its recent series C closing. Photo by Colt Melrose for GoExpedi

Consumers are getting more and more used to picking up their laptops or phones and ordering everyday items in just a few clicks or taps — and seeing those items delivered in just a few days. To Tim Neal, CEO of Houston-based GoExpedi, ordering parts and tools for industrial businesses should be just as easy.

GoExpedi, which just closed a $25 million series C round, has seen rising demand for its e-commerce platform focused on industrial orders, and Neal credits this demand on a change in mindset within the industrial sector. Additionally, he says he's seen clients more and more focused on cutting costs.

Neal shared his company's plans for growth and scale, as well as how fundraising during a pandemic went, in an interview with InnovationMap. Click here to continue reading.

Family-owned composting startup redesigns how Houston disposes of waste

A Houston-area family has made it their business to help Houstonians reduce waste in a convenient, sustainable way. Photo courtesy of Happy Earth Compost

Jesse Stowers has always strived to do his part for the environment. From recycling and making eco-conscious choices, the Stowers were doing everything right, but was it enough?

The family of five was throwing away two trash bags of waste a day that would later end up in landfills until Stowers stumbled on composting as a solution. In May, he launched Happy Earth Compost, a company set on making Houston more sustainable.

If you're unfamiliar with composting, get ready for a crash course. Composting is a sustainable method of decomposing organic solid wastes and turning that waste into compost, a substance that helps plants grow. Food scraps and household items like rice, pasta, meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, fruits, coffee grounds, spoiled food, and tea bags are just a few of the many things that can be composted rather than thrown away.

"Your food waste and compostable waste is anywhere from 25 to 50 percent depending on the family," explains Stowers. According to Happy Earth Compost, one human creates an estimated 1,642 pounds of trash each year. Click here to continue reading.

Houston virtual reality company collaborates with space health organization

Houston-based Z3VR has been granted $500,000 to work or virtual reality applications in space. Photo courtesy of Z3VR

Houston-based startup Z3VR received a $500,000 grant from Baylor College of Medicine's Translational Research Institute for Space Health, or TRISH, last month to continue exploring how the wide world of virtual reality can boost mental and physical health for astronauts on a mission to Mars.

Founded in 2017 by a group of emerging tech enthusiasts, Z3VR discovered its niche in what CEO Josh Ruben calls the "intersection of biosensors and VR" and began consulting with TRISH in 2018. Last year, the company received its first funding from the institution to create virtual reality platforms that promote exercise and provide additional sensory experiences for isolated Mars-bound astronauts.

This new grant, however, takes Z3VR's mission one step farther. The year-long grant will allow Z3VR, in partnership with NASA labs in California and Houston, to further develop their VR platform to use eye movement tracking to identify cognitive, psychiatric, or ophthalmological issues before they arise.

Getting out ahead of issues is more important than ever on the Mission to Mars. Because of the duration and distance of the mission, these astronauts will be uniquely isolated and will face a communication lag of up to 45 minutes between space shuttle and command center.

"What that means from a health care perspective is that pretty much everything you need to treat and diagnose these astronauts needs to be self contained on the spacecraft itself," Ruben says. "The system that we are building is sensitive enough to pick up on these cognitive, ophthalmological, and psychiatric conditions well before they become clinically relevant. It'll be long before the astronaut knows there's a problem. That's the hope." Click here to continue reading.

Houston startup — buoyed by Halliburton — plans to scale

Houston-based Nanotech was the first company to be selected for Halliburton Labs, a recently announced startup incubator. Photo via halliburtonlabs.com

A Houston-based material science startup that uses nanotechnology for thermal insulation and fireproofing has been chosen as the first participant of Halliburton Labs, an innovation incubator, announced late last month by the oil and gas giant.

Halliburton Company chose Nanotech Inc., among a round of contenders to be the first participant of their 12-month program located at their Houston headquarters. Halliburton will provide Nanotech with its own office space, access to Halliburton facilities, technical expertise, and an extensive network to accelerate their product to market.

"With Nanotech's shield material we can have fireproofing infrastructure, saving lives and helping save the planet," says Mike Francis, CEO of Nanotech. "But it's tremendously difficult to scale our small lab to take our product globally, so when we heard about this opportunity with Halliburton Labs, we jumped immediately on it."

Nanotech Inc., started with a singular technology and a simple mission to fireproof the world and reduce energy consumption globally. The base nano shield, flex shield, and forged shield products contain nanoparticles ranging from 1 micrometer to 1 nanometer in a water-based solution with other inorganic compounds. The coating is heat resistant, non-flammable, and the nontoxic properties ensure it is sustainable for the environment. Click here to continue reading.Click here to continue reading.

This Houston tech startup is helping businesses find the funds during COVID-19 crisis and beyond

Houston startup Grant Source, which helps its clients find the right grants to apply for, has seen a surge in business amid the coronavirus shutdown. Getty Images

Since 2015, Grant Source has perfected the art of helping businesses, foundations, and organizations find and secure grant funding — and now their expertise has become vital to COVID-19 response initiatives.

With the devastation caused by the novel coronavirus, America's medical organizations have been scrambling to obtain the funds required to purchase the testing kits, masks, PPE, and other life-saving products needed to help curb the effects of the global pandemic and now, thanks to the mobile and web platform, they're getting the assistance they need to accomplish that goal.

"COVID-19 response is actually our claim to fame right now," says Allen Thornton, founder and CEO of Grant Source. "We have probably done more business in the last few months than we have since we started. Simply because we are helping people find grants with the CARES Act. There's over $500 billion out there, which has created overnight a $40 billion market opportunity for us."

Grant Source has worked extensively with city, county, state, and government agencies to secure grant funding, which is why they have become a game changer for those that need emergency capital to combat COVID-19's challenges. Click here to continue reading.

Houston energy tech startup raises $11M to grow its team locally

Houston-based Datagration Solutions Inc. has raised millions in its latest round — led partially by a local VC firm — to grow its local presence. Photo via Datagration Solutions/Facebook

An $11 million round of funding will fuel national and international growth at Houston-based Datagration Solutions Inc., whose cloud-based software aggregates data to improve workflows and analytics at upstream oil and gas operators.

Houston-based venture capital firm Quantum Energy Partners LLC and New York City-based venture capital firm Global Reserve Group LLC led the round. Datagration represents the sixth investment in energy tech involving the duo of Quantum Energy Partners and Global Reserve Group.

Braxton Huggins, chief marketing officer at Datagration, says the new capital will enable the company to build a technology team in Houston; add to its operations, sales, and marketing team in Houston; and supplement its development team in Austria. These new hires will help Datagration expand its national and international market presence, he says.

Huggins says Datagration aims to more than double in size by the end of 2021. The startup currently employs more than 30 people. Click here to continue reading.

Houston startup uses artificial intelligence to bring its clients better business forecasting calculations

Houston-based Complete Intelligence was just recognized by Capital Factory as the "Newcomer of the Year." Photo via completeintel.com

The business applications of artificial intelligence are boundless. Tony Nash realized AI's potential in an underserved niche.

His startup, Complete Intelligence, uses AI to focus on decision support, which looks at the data and behavior of costs and prices within a global ecosystem in a global environment to help top-tier companies make better business decisions.

"The problem that were solving is companies don't predict their costs and revenues very well," says Nash, the CEO and founder of Complete Intelligence. "There are really high error rates in company costs and revenue forecasts and so what we've done is built a globally integrated artificial intelligence platform that can help people predict their costs and their revenues with a very low error rate."

Founded in 2015, Complete Intelligence is an AI platform that forecasts assets and allows evaluation of currencies, commodities, equity indices and economics. The Woodlands-based company also does advanced procurement and revenue for corporate clients.

"We've spent a couple years building this," says Nash. "We have a platform that is helping clients with planning, finance, procurement and sales and a host of other things. We are forecasting equity markets; we are forecasting commodity prices, currencies, economics and trades. We built a model of the global economy and transactions across the global economy, so it's a very large, very detailed artificial intelligence platform."

That platform, CI Futures, has streamlined comprehensive price forecasting and data analysis, allowing for sound, data-based decisions.

"Our products are pretty simple," says Nash. "We have our basic off the shelf forecast which is called CI Futures, which is currencies, commodities, equities and economics and trade. Its basic raw data forecasts. We distribute that raw data on our website and other data distribution websites. We also have a product called Cost Flow, which is our procurement forecasting engine, where we build a material level forecasting for clients." Click here to continue reading.

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This week's innovators to know are focused on using artificial intelligence in data management, banking for startups, and 5G awareness in Houston. Courtesy photos

3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

This year, Houston's innovation ecosystem is set to change tenfold — from the rise of 5G to burgeoning startup and entrepreneurial hubs emerging across town.

Today's featured innovators know a bit about these movements — from an entrepreneur using artificial intelligence in data management for his clients to a banking exec who went all-in on startups.

Tony Nash, founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence

Courtesy of Complete Intelligence

Every company wishes they have a crystal ball when it comes to making business decisions, and while a physical iteration of that wish isn't possible, Tony Nash has developed the next best thing for his clients at his startup, Complete Intelligence.

"We've spent a couple years building this," says Nash in a recent InnovationMap interview. "We have a platform that is helping clients with planning, finance, procurement and sales and a host of other things. ... We built a model of the global economy and transactions across the global economy, so it's a very large, very detailed artificial intelligence platform." Read more.

Brian Richards, Houston innovation hub director at Accenture and board member at Houston Exponential

Courtesy of Accenture

The rise of 5G in Houston feels familiar to Brian Richards. He writes in a recent guest column that the development of the technology is similar to the moment in Houston's history when NASA landed a man on the moon.

There are a few similarities Richards expresses in his article, as well as providing more information about 5G itself, but the undeniable fact is 5G will create a lasting impact in Houston.

"Above all, as Houston continues to race toward building a world-class innovation ecosystem and a sustainable, thriving economy, we simply can't take our foot off the gas in the 5G race — much like the moon race," he writes. "It's an imperative that the region continue to lead in 5G network adoption and that our local industries and businesses envision, plan and develop new ways of working." Read more.

Jimmy Allen, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Texas Citizens Bank

Courtesy of Texas Citizens Bank

It's become a bit of a trend to see banks taking a bet on startups — Capital One, for instance, has even entered the coworking industry itself. And one Houston-area bank has become an early adopter of this trend locally.

Jimmy Allen, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Texas Citizens Bank, says the bank's new 3,900-square-foot location — its seventh branch in the Houston area — fits perfectly within The Cannon's 120,000-square-foot building in West Houston, which Texas Citizens helped build. The branch opened in December 2019; the grand opening is planned for January 2020.

"Owner-operated businesses are both the genesis of our business model and [a] key customer segment served," says Allen, who was named to his position in November. "A subset of that group certainly includes young, relatively new companies, which favor the current trend in coworking or live-work-play communities." Read more.

Houston-based Complete Intelligence was just recognized by Capital Factory as the "Newcomer of the Year." Photo via completeintel.com

Houston startup uses artificial intelligence to bring its clients better business forecasting calculations

AI on the mind

The business applications of artificial intelligence are boundless. Tony Nash realized AI's potential in an underserved niche.

That platform, CI Futures, has streamlined comprehensive price forecasting and data analysis, allowing for sound, data-based decisions.

completeintel.com

"Then we have a product that we'll launch next year called Revenue Flow, which is a sales forecasting tool that will use balance of both client data and publicly available data to forecast client sales by product, by geography and so on and so forth. So we really only do three things: revenues, costs and raw data forecasts."

Forecasting across industries

Complete Intelligence's Cost Flow and Revenue Flow products are specific to direct clients. They are working with clients in the food and beverage sector, the energy sector, the chemical sector, and the technology sector.

"Anybody that manufactures a tangible good, should use our product," says Nash. "Because we can take their historical data we can configure their bills of material and they can see the exact cost and exact revenue of those products by month over time."

CI is not a consulting firm, so they offer their clients an annual license, which allows them to receive updated forecasts every month to understand how markets will iterate over time.

"We're integrating with the client's enterprise data," says Nash. "Whether it's their ERP system or their procurement system or their CRM, we're integrating with client's enterprise data, and we're creating forecast outlooks that are perfectly contextually relevant for client buying decisions."

Called out by Capital Factory

As a business solution, CI has garnered widespread industry confidence and accolades, such as Capital Factory's coveted "Newcomer of the Year" award, which recognizes innovative companies from a pool of 110 startups in Texas.

"Honestly, I couldn't believe it because with a startup like ours, there's so much hard work that goes into it, there's so much time, there's so much persistence," says Nash.

"And the types of startups that Capital Factory attracts are very competitive startups, so for us to receive this award, it's given us a huge amount of credibility in the market and it's really encouraged the team inside the company to understand that what we're doing is being recognized, it's meaningful and we're really going places."

From consulting to billions of monthly calculations

Nash is no stranger to going places. Before setting up shop in his native Texas, he lived in Singapore for 15 years where he started his career in sourcing and procurement for American retail firms.

"I became very sensitive to costs, cost inflections and I got very involved in global sourcing and international trade and then I did a couple of corporate turnarounds and start ups and so with that you see costs as an issue with those types of firms," Nash says.

He then worked with the Economist running their global research business. There, he grew familiar with how clients and customers use data. At IHS Markit, a global information provider.

"When I was working with those firms, those firms helped companies with planning," says Nash. "The problem is that those firms have very large errors in their forecasts. It is not just the internal forecasts that have a 30 percent or higher error rate in their forecasts, even the industry forecasters typically have around a 20 percent error rates in their forecasts.

"Even the people who should actually know where prices are going are not very good forecasters. With Complete Intelligence, we wanted to use data and use artificial intelligence to machine learning to create a better way to identify where costs and revenues will go for companies."

Every month, CI runs billions of calculations. They test their error rates and record them for clients that request them. With 700 assets that they show publicly, CI their average error rate is 3.7 percent, which is dramatically lower than both corporate procurement professionals and industry experts.

"With us doing billions of calculations, it allows us to run simulations and scenarios that your average analyst just can't do and most companies haven't even thought of. We're able to run a comprehensive view of activities in the world to understand how things directly and indirectly affect a cost. In Houston, for example, that could be crude oil or natural gas or something like that."

Proving its value

Last year, the company tested its platform with a natural gas trader. After reviewing the data, CI revealed to the client that natural gas would fall by 40 percent over the next year.

"They looked at our forecast and said they couldn't work with us because it didn't make sense," says Nash. "A 40 percent fall didn't make sense, so they didn't subscribe to us. That was 2018. What has happened over the past 12 months? Natural gas prices had fallen by 49 percent. You would look at our forecasts and say, 'Wow, that's a dramatic drop over 12 months.' But reality was even more dramatic than that and there weren't analysts out there saying what our model was telling us."

That natural gas trading company never admitted its faux pas, but if they had listened to CI, they could have positioned themselves to negotiate their vendors down for their cost base, which helps the margin of their business.

"Nobody ever admits mistakes," says Nash. "But when you think about the numerous materials that require natural gas, especially things that are manufactured in Houston, it affects a lot of costs."

Houston roots — by way of Asia

The missed opportunity with the natural gas trader notwithstanding, Nash is happy that he brought Complete Intelligence to Houston.

"I went to Texas A&M and grew up in Texas, so I moved back to Texas knowing how good Americans are with planning, with math and with data. I like Houston because people make stuff in Houston," Nash says. "We just found Houston to be perfect after spending 15 years in Asia given the global centrality of Houston. The industry's here and there's a lot of diversity in Houston."

Nash's expectation was that he would be able to work with Western multinationals to improve their analytics and their artificial intelligence processes because he has learned that there is a lot of pressure in American financial markets and analysts communities to really know what is happening within companies.

"We want companies to be able to really tightly plan their costs so they can better improve their profitability," says Nash. "That's what I wanted to do when we moved to the U.S. and we're finding that there's a lot of interest from companies."

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New CEO brings strategic vision to Houston co. advancing neurodegenerative disease treatments

Q&A

Coya Therapeutics has named a new CEO. As of Nov. 1, Arun Swaminathan replaced Co-founder Howard Berman in the role. Berman has assumed the title of executive chairman, in which he will still remain active with the company.

Swaminathan started with Coya two years ago as chief business officer. This transition was planned, says the PhD-holding scientist and businessman.

“(Berman's) intent was that it was the right time to put in place a CEO that, as we move into the operational phases of the company, that can take the reins from him,” he tells InnovationMap.

Coya Therapeutics is a publicly traded biotechnology company that is working on two novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Coya's therapeutics, which are currently in trials, use regulatory T cells (T regs) to target both systemic- and neuroinflammation in patients.

InnovationMap: Berman has been a very visible CEO. Will you follow suit?

Arun Swaminathan: I think it's part of the CEO’s job to be visible and to communicate the value of our company to all the stakeholders out there. So yes, I do plan to be visible as well. Obviously, Howard as the founder had elements that he talked about, the foundational stories. I obviously will be doing less of that.

IM: What was your journey from the lab to the boardroom?

AS: I have a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh. I like to say that I grew up at Bristol Myers Squibb, so I started in a clinical pharmacology group at BMS, running clinical trials, but in the cardiovascular and metabolic space.

What happened was, as I was the study director on a diabetes trial there, and the data starts coming in for these early diabetic trials, and I got highly involved with the commercial folks at BMS in starting to plan out “What does the target profile look like? How is this going to play out in the real world?” You know, the marketing teams and commercial teams start engaging when clinical data is available, because they're starting to plan for the eventual launch of the product.

That gave me a lot of exposure to the commercial side of things, and I also got a lot of experience presenting to opinion leaders and others through that role. And I said, “What I really love is that intersection between science and business.” And so I think that was my moment.

Then I moved to business development and licensing, where I helped scan the universe for assets and talk to CEOs of companies like Coya as a junior person, trying to understand if there's something that we can bring into BMS to strengthen the pipeline of BMS. So that gave me exposure to deals, how deals are structured, how you negotiate a lot of that kind of stuff.

Then I said, “Look, if I want to be a complete person in biotech, I do need to go into more true commercial roles.” So I went into commercial strategy. I was involved in the commercial strategy for what is now known as Eliquis. Was back then known as apixaban. That’s still the generic name.

Then I led marketing for Orencia, a rheumatoid arthritis drug. So I went and got both strategic and tactical marketing experience at BMS, and then I used all of that experience, rounded up. I eventually ended up co-founding a company, and that's led me to the last nine years with smaller biotech companies. So that's my evolution and path. But I think my true moment of realization was about three years into my clinical role at BMS, when I said, what I really enjoy is translating good science into commercial value, and I think that's what excites me.

IM: Why is Houston an important part of Coya's success?

AS: It is important that Coya stays in Houston, because we have a very close association with Houston Methodist, we get a lot of our work, our early research work still done through Houston Methodist, through Dr. [Stanley] Appel's lab and through other experts. We absolutely have a special research agreement with Houston Methodist, so we have a very strong reason to be in Houston. So, we do not anticipate moving out of Houston.

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This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

California femtech leader integrates Houston-founded conversational AI tool

girl gang

Willow users, meet Ema — you're new best AI-enabled friend.

Houston-founded Ema (née SocialMama), an AI resource for maternal health support, has been loaded onto the Willow Innovations Inc. app, a platform for breastfeeding mothers.

"We are thrilled to integrate our conversational AI platform into the Willow App and leverage the power of advanced technology to meet women where they are with the information they need," Amanda Ducach, founder of Ema, says in a news release. "Ema and Willow have a shared mission to make lasting improvements in women's health and we built a one-of-a-kind solution that addresses the unique challenges mothers face regularly.

"Our partnership represents a critical advancement for today's mothers and demonstrates how responsible AI can improve the maternal care experience," she continues.

Now, users on the app can utilize Ema's HIPPA-secure tool that pulls from a comprehensive, proprietary database of expert-backed information. The conversational AI chatbot responds prioritizing speed, accuracy, and empathy and compassion for users. Ema reports that their users "will feel like they are talking with their favorite postpartum (labor and delivery) nurse."

"New moms don't have enough support — for their feeding and parenting journey, or in their postpartum care. We're thrilled to partner with Ema to offer moms personalized information along this journey," adds Sarah O'Leary, CEO of Willow. "AI tools, when implemented thoughtfully, can help close gaps in delivering personalized guidance at an efficient scale and I'm excited about the impact Ema can have on the well-being of mothers in our Willow community."

Founded in 2018 as a way to connect new moms, Ema evolved with a major rebrand and pivot to AI-backed tools last year.

Willow was launched in 2014 and released the first wearable, in-bra breast pump in 2017.

Houston researchers find alternate data for loan qualification

houston voices

Millions of consumers who apply for a loan to buy a house or car or start a business can’t qualify — even if they’re likely to pay it back. That’s because many lack a key piece of financial information: a credit score.

The problem isn’t just isolated to emerging economies. Exclusion from the financial system is a major issue in the United States, too, where some 45 million adults may be denied access to loans because they don’t have a credit history and are “credit invisible.”

To improve access to loans and peoples’ economic mobility, lenders have started looking into alternative data sources to assess a loan applicant’s risk of defaulting. These include bank account transactions and on-time rental, utility and mobile phone payments.

A new article by Rice Business assistant professor of marketing Jung Youn Lee and colleagues from Notre Dame and Northwestern identifies an even more widespread data source that could broaden the pool of qualified applicants: grocery store receipts.

As metrics for predicting credit risk, the researchers found that the types of food, drinks and other products consumers buy, and how they buy them, are just as good as a traditional credit score.

“There could be privacy concerns when you think about it in practice,” Lee says, “so the consumer should really have the option and be empowered to do it.” One approach could be to let consumers opt in to a lender looking at their grocery data as a second chance at approval rather than automatically enrolling them and offering an opt-out.

To arrive at their findings, the researchers analyzed grocery transaction data from a multinational conglomerate headquartered in a Middle Eastern country that owns a credit card issuer and a large-scale supermarket chain. Many people in the country are unbanked. They merged the supermarket’s loyalty card data and issuer’s credit card spending and payment history numbers, resulting in data on 30,089 consumers from January 2017 to June 2019. About half had a credit score, 81% always paid their credit card bills on time, 12% missed payments periodically, and 7% defaulted.

The researchers first created a model to establish a connection between grocery purchasing behavior and credit risk. They found that people who bought healthy foods like fresh milk, yogurt and fruits and vegetables were more likely to pay their bills on time, while shoppers who purchased cigarettes, energy drinks and canned meat tended to miss payments. This held true for “observationally equivalent” individuals — those with similar income, occupation, employment status and number of dependents. In other words, when two people look demographically identical, the study still finds that they have different credit risks.

People’s grocery-buying behaviors play a factor in their likelihood to pay their bills on time, too. For example, cardholders who consistently paid their credit card bill on time were more likely to shop on the same day of the week, spend similar amounts across months and buy the same brands and product categories.

The researchers then built two credit-scoring predictive algorithms to simulate a lender’s decision of whether or not to approve a credit card applicant. One excludes grocery data inputs, and the other includes them (in addition to standard data). Incorporating grocery data into their decision-making process improved risk assessment of an applicant by a factor of 3.11% to 7.66%.

Furthermore, the lender in the simulation experienced a 1.46% profit increase when the researchers implemented a two-stage decision-making process — first, screening applicants using only standard data, then adding grocery data as an additional layer.

One caveat to these findings, Lee and her colleagues warn, is that the benefit of grocery data falls sharply as traditional credit scores or relationship-specific credit histories become available. This suggests the data could be most helpful for consumers new to credit.

Overall, however, this could be a win-win scenario for both consumers and lenders. “People excluded from the traditional credit system gain access to loans,” Lee says, “and lenders become more profitable by approving more creditworthy people.”