$5M grant expands entrepreneurship opportunities at UH

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Known as the Wayne B. Duddlesten Free Enterprise Institute, the new program will operate in association with the UH Bauer College’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship and be open to all UH students. Photo via bauerticker.uh.edu

A $5 million gift from the Wayne Duddlesten Foundation will establish expanded opportunities for entrepreneurship at the University of Houston, according to an announcement from the college earlier this month.

Known as the Wayne B. Duddlesten Free Enterprise Institute, the new program will operate in association with the UH Bauer College’s Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship and be open to all UH students. It's expected to launch in 2024.

UH staff from the Duddlesten Institute and the Wolff Center will be able match budding entrepreneurs across campus with mentors, offer website-building resources, provide legal services and other tools.

"Our goal is to empower imaginative thinkers from idea to market," Paul A. Pavlou, dean of the Bauer College of Business and Cullen Distinguished Chair Professor, said in a statement. "We will support the process from a concept to incubation and continue offering necessary resources all the way to launching a successful new business.”

Dave Cook, executive director of the Wolff Center, said the new institute will create a new type of "synergy across campus."

"It will help create a fabric of innovation, talent, financial, legal and technical service along with a commitment to long held values of the importance of character and integrity as businesses are created," Cook said. "We are honored to share this vision through this collaboration.”

Duddlesten has been a longtime supporter of the university. The successful real estate developer, who's credited for bringing the Rockets to Houston in the '70s, was a Houston native and UH graduate.

His foundation donated $5 million to establish an endowed scholarship at Bauer for students studying entrepreneurship or real estate in 2020. It also established an endowed Tier One Scholarship and endowed scholarship in the Graduate College of Social Work, as well as 25 one-time scholarships for Wolff Center students over the years.

Duddlesten also served as a trustee emeritus and advisory board member for the UH Foundation and the UH System Development Board before his death in 2010.


Earlier this academic year, Rice University also unveiled a new facility dedicated to Ralph O'Connor, former president and CEO of the Highland Oil Company and founder of Ralph S. O’Connor & Associates. The $152 million, state-of-the-art facility features five floors of labs, classrooms and seminar rooms, and is Rice's largest core campus research facility. Click here to read more.
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A new program launched by two UH-based organizations will help early-stage startups commercialize, apply for grants, and more. Photo via UH.edu

University of Houston launches new collaborative program for startups in Houston, Gulf Coast Region

ready to grow

Two University of Houston organizations have partnered up to further support early-stage startups in the Gulf Coast Region.

The university announced this month that its UH Technology Bridge and the UH Texas Gulf Coast Small Business Development Center are now accepting applications for a new, collaborative program that will help innovators and entrepreneurs develop a pitch or commercialization plan. The program will also guide participants in applying for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grants and other investments.

Applications are open to those with the university and across the region.

"We are excited to partner with the University of Houston Technology Bridge to provide this valuable support to early-tech startups in the Texas Gulf Coast region," Steven Lawrence, director of the UH Texas Gulf Coast SBDC Network, says in a statement. "Our program is designed to help innovators take their ideas to the next level and prepare for success in the marketplace."

"Our goal is to help innovators turn their ideas into successful businesses, and this partnership will help us achieve that goal," Tanu Chatterji, Associate Director of Startup Development at UH, echoes in the news release.

The UH Texas Gulf Coast SBDC Network is one of 14 SBDCs in the Texas Gulf Coast Region that's part of UH's C.T. Bauer College of Business and funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The centers provide no-cost and affordable business training and advising.

The UH Tech Bridge focuses on providing research and development space to UH-affiliated startups and entrepreneurs. The 15-building complex and its 31,000 square feet of incubator space houses more than 20 small companies and startups that provide internship and learning opportunities for UH students, along with several federally funded research centers and institutes.

Earlier this year, the Tech Bridge received a $2.875 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The grant is slated to benefit the UH Industry & International Innovation Hub and will establish The Deck Innovation & Coworking Center.

Ramanan Krishnamoorti, the vice president of energy and innovation at the University of Houston who oversees the UH Technology Bridge, spoke with the Houston Innovators Podcast earlier this summer about UH's plans to build a central campus hub for innovation and the need to encourage more innovation and entrepreneurship.
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Houston’s 10 most valuable startups revealed in new report

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The Greater Houston Partnership has released its list of the 10 most valuable startups that are fueling the city’s growth and entrepreneurial energy, including industry giants like Axiom Space and Fervo Energy.

Currently, Houston hosts more than 1,300 startups in industries such as energy, life sciences, manufacturing and aerospace, according to the GHP. The list ranks its top 10 startups by valuation based on the company’s last private funding round, reflected in Pitchbook data, as of Oct. 20 of this year.

The top 10 list includes:

10. NXTClean Fuels

Valuation: $530 million

NXTClean Fuels builds biofuel refineries that produce renewable fuel by using feedstocks like cooking oil and recycled organic materials.

9. Homebase

Valuation: $660 million

HR tech company Homebase provides employee management software that helps manage and optimize timesheets, payroll and more, with over over 100,000 small businesses and 2 million hourly workers using its product.

8. Zolve

Valuation: $800 million

Zolve is a banking platform that provides customers with access to financial products that aim to be accessible, flexible, and affordable than other financial platforms.

7. Stramsen Biotech

Valuation: $807 million

Stramsen Biotech develops plant-based drug therapies that target both infectious and noninfectious diseases, which include cancer, diabetes, HIV, kidney disease and neurological issues.

6. Octagos

Valuation: $843 million

Healthtech company Octagos has developed a remote cardiac monitoring software driven by AI that helps consolidate patient data in real-time, assisting healthcare professionals in providing quicker, easier and more accurate care.

5. Fervo Energy

Valuation: $1.4 billion

Pioneering geothermal company Fervo Energy combines horizontal drilling and fiber-optic sensing to produce electricity. The company is developing its flagship Cape Station geothermal power project in Utah. The first phase of the project will supply 100 megawatts of power beginning in 2026

4.Cart.com

Valuation: $1.7 billion

Cart.com is an e-commerce giant and logistics solutions provider that was founded in 2020 and obtained unicorn status within just three years.

3. Axiom Space

Valuation: $2.1 billion

Axiom Space is one of the anchor tenants at the Houston Spaceport, and has completed four missions of sending commercial astronauts to the ISS since 2022. In 2027, the company expects to see the first section of its private space station, Axiom Station, launched into low-earth orbit.

2. Solugen

Valuation: $2.175 billion

Solugen replaces petroleum-based products with plant-derived substitutes through its Bioforge manufacturing platform.

1. HighRadius

Valuation: $3.2 billion

HighRadius uses advanced technology to automate and manage accounts receivable processes for businesses worldwide.

The GHP also released its State of Houston’s Tech and Innovation Landscape, which mapped Houston’s digital and innovation sectors. Read the full report here.

Photos: Highlights from the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards

Innovation Awards Recap

The 2025 Houston Innovation Awards season came to a close on Nov. 13 at InnovationMap's annual awards program and networking event.

The fifth annual Houston Innovation Awards celebrated more than 40 innovative finalists and crowned 10 winners across prestigious categories. In the weeks leading up to the event, finalists were profiled in our editorial series spotlights. Read all about this year's winners here.

Finalists, judges, and special guests connected during an exclusive VIP reception before the doors officially opened for the evening. A full house of attendees then gathered to celebrate the best and brightest in Houston innovation right now. The night culminated in an awards program, emceed this year by Lawson Gow, Greentown Labs Head of Houston.

Scroll through the photos below for scenes from the event, including the winners, the guests, and more highlights from the program.

Special thanks to this year's sponsors for an unforgettable evening honoring Houston innovation: Houston City College Northwest, Houston Powder Coaters, FLIGHT by Yuengling, William Price Distilling, and Citizens Catering.

2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners:

Energy Transition Business of the Year: Eclipse Energy. Photo by Emily Jaschke
2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners:

2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners, Continued

Minority-founded Business of the Year: Mars Materials. Photo by Emily Jaschke

2025 Houston Innovation Awards Guests 

Photo by Emily Jaschke

More 2025 Houston Innovation Awards Highlights

Photo by Emily Jaschke

Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

jobs report

If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

“Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

“Texas is America’s jobs leader,” Abbott says. “With the best business climate in the nation and a skilled and growing labor force, Texas is where businesses invest, jobs grow, and families thrive. Texas will continue to cut red tape and invest in businesses large and small to spur the economic growth of communities across our great state.”

While Abbott proclaims Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

  • Austin — 3.9 percent
  • Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
  • Houston — 5 percent
  • San Antonio — 4.4 percent

Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.
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