3 Houston innovators to know this week

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This week's Houston innovators to know include Yared Akalou of Alcove Group, Serafina Lalany,of Houston Exponential, and Patrick Lewis of Sustainability Ventures Group. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: This week's group of Houston innovators you need to know might be pretty familiar to you, however each of them have a new endeavor they are excited to launch — from an energy investment group with a new name to new virtual platforms to benefit entrepreneurs.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group

Yared Akalou founded IAmOther50 to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. Photo courtesy of Alcove

Yared Akalou describes himself as a designer-focused entrepreneur. As founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group, his latest venture, IAmOther50, is a platform for creatives and freelancers to connect to work. This innovation he's focused on is in light of the growth in jobs that are freelance and remote.

"I am really on a mission," Akalou tells InnovationMap. "I have been talking about the future of work for over a decade now. The paradigm will change to viewing work as a service, so it is important to tell a freelancer's story through a more engaging and novel way." Read more.

Serafina Lalany, chief of staff at Houston Exponential

Serafina Lalany joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss the HTX TechList, which launches this week. Photo courtesy of Serafina Lalany

Serafina Lalany is pinpoint focused on creating resources for Houston innovators through her work at Houston Exponential. Most recently, that's meant creating and launching the HTX TechList, which went live last week. For her, one of the most important benefits the platform will afford the city is access to data about the ecosystem.

"We needed a centralized datasource classifying startups, investors, startup development organizations, and corporate innovators," she says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "There was not any good resource on the internet that was verified, centralized, and adhered to a data standard." Read more and stream the episode.

Patrick Lewis, managing partner of Sustainability Ventures Group

Houston-based Sustainability Ventures Group is focused on connecting energy companies to innovative, sustainable solutions. Photo courtesy of SVG

As Patrick Lewis started to get a feel for what his network within the energy industry was looking for amid the pandemic, he thought some of the sustainability-focused ventures might be on the back burner.

"We thought we would hear that sustainability in this environment may have slipped down the priority list, but it was the exact opposite," Lewis says. "Pretty consistently across all the operators, sustainability, reducing emissions, and greenhouse gases — those are all even more important today."

This confirmation that the energy industry is committed to innovative sustainability projects led Lewis to rebrand his energy tech investment group from BBL Ventures to Sustainability Ventures Group, or SVG. The investment team focuses on reverse engineering the startup innovation process by sourcing the concerns and goals of the energy companies, then finding solutions from the startup world through reverse pitch competitions and challenges. Read more.

Houston — much like the rest of the world — has a growing freelance economy. A local innovator has created a platform for freelancers to find work. Photo courtesy of Common Desk

Houston entrepreneur creates a new digital platform to help connect freelancers to clients

calling all creatives

By 2027, freelancers will account for the majority of the American workforce — and Houston is already well represented by the freelance space.

According to a recent study, Houston is home to 117,260 skilled freelancers who generated more than $4.1 billion in revenue in 2018. This burgeoning environment for freelancers presents many opportunities for innovations in the tech world, as one Houston entrepreneur has already discovered.

Yared Akalou, founder-and-CEO of Alcove Group and self-described designer-focused entrepreneur, released his third innovation catering to freelancers of the Houston area. His digital solutions platform, IAmOther50, assists freelancers with securing new clients by sharing their personal stories rather than just submitting their professional experience, it uses videos and articles to promote the work of a freelancer and connect them to their next client.

At first glance, the digital platform seems like a departure for Akalou who in 2017 founded Alcove, a portable laptop case that serves as a private workspace for freelancers to use amid coffee shops or coworking spaces. However, IAmOther50 serves as a distinctly separate yet integral part of his innovation landscape.

"These projects have been a combination of my focus and research," says Akalou. "My new platform works hand in hand with Alcove, supporting the mission to help people stay productive from anywhere."

The digital platform serves to capture the brand of the freelancer along with their personality and experience. It lives at the intersection of popular social media platforms and professional platforms such as LinkedIn, except just for freelancers in the Houston area. Currently, any freelancing professional in the Houston area can join for free by filling out a survey that customizes their goals for their profile.

"IAmOther50 provides information in a contextual way," says Akalou. "We have this guiding principle of delivering value even before the prospective client contacts the freelancer for an interview or potential position. It's about going beyond just a resume of what you've done and showcasing how you add value right now."

Akalou, who is also one of the mentors in The Ion Smart and Resilient Cities Accelerator, is focused on elevating the professional profiles of many freelancers, including those outside the Houston area. He is aiming to grow the platform to a self-service platform that can connect freelancers to clients all over the biggest metropolitan areas soon.

It's not easy getting green. Getty Images

3 tips for a successful crowdfunding campaign

Know before you hit go

Kickstarter is a widely popular crowdfunding platform that helps people to raise money and awareness for their creative projects. While known for product-focused campaigns, musicians to film producers have also achieved success on the platform. In September of 2017, my Houston-based startup GetAlcove.com launched our first kickstarter campaign. While we exceeded our campaign goal, it was a very intense 45 day campaign. Let's consider the statistics:

Yes, almost 70 percent of projects fail. Don't fret. Understanding how to effectively plan and launch your campaign will increase your chances for meeting your campaign goals.

By March 2017, my co-founder and I received enough customer feedback to warrant the pursuit of developing Alcove Workstation™ further. We were attracted to crowdfunding as it presented a viable option for validating our concept with a wider audience while also raising the initial working capital necessary to mass producing Alcove. After researching the various crowdfunding platforms, we decided on Kickstarter as it is well known for launching product-focused campaigns and has a strong brand that we could leverage during our marketing efforts. While we read countless publications on how to prepare for our crowdfunding campaign, our experience on Kickstarter garnered three key lessons.

1. Spend up to one year prepping before launching your campaign.

I can't stress this enough. After we decided to launch, we spent six months engaging with our target audience and obtaining verbal commitments from friends and family and past colleagues to back our project. We also presented at local events and evangelized our brand via social media marketing. In hindsight, we should have spent additional time finalizing the production ready sample of our product prior to launching.

Once you launch your campaign, the clock starts ticking and you'll need deliver fast. Due to a myriad of issues with remote manufacturing, we inevitably missed our original ship date. Fortunately, the kickstarter community is forgiving and recognizes the inherent challenges with bringing a product to market. Even so, I recommend launching your campaign as close to your final concept as possible to reduce unforeseen delays with manufacturing and shipping logistics.

Once you launch your campaign, the clock starts ticking and you'll need deliver fast.

2. Determine which crowdfunding platform is right for your project.

There are four main types of crowdfunding platforms. Kickstarter and Indiegogo are rewards-based whereas platforms like GoFundMe are donation-based. More recently, equity, and debt based platforms like Houston's NextSeed have garnered attention from campaigners seeking alternative methods to raising funds and deferring payment.

Take the time to read about each type and contact each platform for specifics about how they will support your campaign during and after campaign. Indiegogo does a solid job of highlighting their partnerships with vendors that can assist you during different stages of your campaign; offering marketing promotion, direct links to manufacturing vendors, and additional funding options even after your campaign ends.

The next step to determining the right platform for your project is to search for similar "like" products. If you are launching the most revolutionary ear buds on the planet, then you want to ensure people are backing ear buds or similar product on the platform/s you are considering. A simple search on each site will pull up all ear bud projects to date. Then, you can quickly assess the patterns of the most successful vs. unsuccessful campaigns.

3. Launch the right campaign goal, with the right team, at the right time.

This is both important and hard to determine. Let's break it down.

The right campaign goal
The campaign goal is the total dollar amount you want to raise by the end of your campaign. The goal amount can be adjusted once on Kickstarter but I recommend that you keep it low — $5,000-$10,000 — to ensure you meet your goal within two days — three days max. Keep in mind you are competing with four to five thousand live projects at any given time. If you make your campaign goal, Kickstarter's algorithm pushes your project up the list and you have a good shot of being listed or even featured on the front page of Kickstarter's website. If you make your campaign goal too high and don't meet your goal with those couple days, Kickstarter's algorithm pushes your project down the list. If I recall, our campaign went from approximately 115 to 800 after day two. Each day that passes, your project is pushed even further down the list of over 4000 projects. What this means to your project is that unless you have a serious marketing engine behind you, no one will see your project outside of your immediate contact list or followers on social media. This is where hiring the right team of marketers and PR can be invaluable.

The right team
Think of the development of your crowdfunding campaign as a micro-enterprise site that requires the right mix of talent to build out. Funded startups with established teams and products in market, for instance, are launching on Kickstarter as a way to increase market awareness of their new products. For the boot-strapped startups with small teams, leverage your strengths and hire for gaps in skills to ensure you develop the right communications, pricing strategy, and overall layout of your page. To be clear, a production quality video is an absolute must.

The right time
Finally, consider the timing of your launch to align with complimentary events or holidays. If your product is focused on education/learning, the obvious timeframe would be to launch during back to school. Another way to galvanize your target audience is to identify popular conferences for your industry. For our campaign, we aligned with the Tech Disrupt conference in San Francisco and literally went live on Kickstarter directly from our exhibit booth!

While I can not make any guarantees for your campaign's success, I am confident that if you apply these tips, you will be that much closer to achieving your campaign goals.

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Yared Akalou is the founder of Houston-based Alcove.

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8+ can't-miss Houston business and innovation events in April

where to be

Editor’s note: Houston's weeklong innovation festival kicks off April, followed by Rice University's globally recognized pitch competition returning for its 26th year. Plus, find coworking pop-ups, industry meetups, pitch battles and even a crawfish boil on the calendar. Here’s what not to miss and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

March 30-April 4 — H-Town Roundup

Celebrate innovation, entrepreneurship and collaboration at Houston Exponential's sixth-annual H-Town Roundup. During the free event series, previously known as Houston Tech Rodeo, attendees can expect insightful talks, workshops and networking events at venues across the city.

This event began March 30. Register here.

April 2 — Industrious Coworking Day

Enjoy a complimentary day of cowering at Industrious and network with professionals at the Ion. Breakfast, snacks, wifi and workspace tours are included. Following the cowering day, Industrious will host happy hour at Second Draught from 4-6 p.m.

This event is Thursday, April 2, from 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

April 2 — Technology Summit for Women

The fourth annual Women in Tech Cummil will feature speakers across three core tracks: Transformation + Digital strategy, Cyber + Risk + Resilience, and AI in Practice. Pearl Chu, director of technical domains and university relations at SLB, will give the opening remarks. Other panelists come from CenterPoint Energy, BP, Technip Energies and other leading companies.

This event is Thursday, April 2, from 2-5 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

April 8 — Veterans Business Battle

Hear pitches from veterans and entrepreneurs as they compete for more than $10 million in investments at Rice Businesses' 12th annual Veterans Business Battle. This year, the two-day event will also feature a Small Business Expo, which invites Houston-based, veteran-owned businesses to participate in education, networking and the opportunity to showcase their business. Moonshots Capital and Mercury Fund will also host a fireside chat.

This event begins Wednesday, April 8, at 11 a.m. at the Ion. Click here to register.

April 9-11 — Rice Business Plan Competition

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship will host the 26th annual Rice Business Plan Competition this month. Forty-two student-led teams from around the world, including one team from Rice, will present their plans before more than 300 angel, venture capital, and corporate investors to compete for more than $1 million in prizes.

This event begins Thursday, April 9. Find more information here.

April 10 — BioHouston Chili Cookoff

Connect with Houston's life sciences community at BioHouston's 21st annual chili cookout. This event is geared toward startup founders, researchers and industry veterans alike.

This event is Friday, April 10, from noon-4 p.m. at Bayou City Event Center. Register here.

April 14 — Mercury Fund Day at the Ion: Agentic Commerce

Don’t miss the latest installment of Mercury Fund Day at the Ion, previously known as Software Day. The recurring monthly event features office hours (by application), a keynote and networking opportunities. This month's topic focuses on agentic commerce.

This event is Tuesday, April 14, from 3:30-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

April 19 – UH Energy Industry Crawfish Boil

Head to the UH Cullen College of Engineering Green Space for the 35th annual UH Energy Industry Crawfish Boil. The event will include a student showcase, STEM activities, a kids zone, live music, networking and, of course, crawfish. Proceeds from the event will support the multidisciplinary capstone fund that aims to increase professional readiness for Cullen College engineering and technology students.

This event is Sunday, April 19, from 1-5 p.m. at the Cullen College of Engineering Green Space. Find more information here.

April 24 — Rice Business Healthcare Conference

Leading experts, innovators and the next generation of healthcare leaders will converge at the Rice Business Healthcare Conference. Hosted by the Rice Business Healthcare Association, the conference will explore AI's potential impact on the sector.

This event is Friday, April 24, from 8 a.m.-2 p.m. at McNair Hall on Rice University's campus. Find more information here.

Houston unicorn closes $421M to fuel first phase of flagship energy project

Heating Up

Houston geothermal unicorn Fervo Energy has closed $421 million in non-recourse debt financing for the first phase of its flagship Cape Station project in Beaver County, Utah.

Fervo believes Cape Station can meet the needs of surging power demand from data centers, domestic manufacturing and an energy market aiming to use clean and reliable power. According to the company, Cape Station will begin delivering its first power to the grid this year and is expected to reach approximately 100 megwatts of operating capacity by early 2027. Fervo added that it plans to scale to 500 megawatts.

The $421 million financing package includes a $309 million construction-to-term loan, a $61 million tax credit bridge loan, and a $51 million letter of credit facility. The facilities will fund the remaining construction costs for the first phase of Cape Station, and will also support the project’s counterparty credit support requirements.

Coordinating lead arrangers include Barclays, BBVA, HSBC, MUFG, RBC and Société Générale, with additional participation from Bank of America, J.P. Morgan and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited, New York Branch.

“As demand for firm, clean, affordable power accelerates, EGS (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) is set to become a core energy asset class for infrastructure lenders,” Sean Pollock, managing director, project Finance at RBC Capital Markets, said in a news release. “Fervo is pioneering this step change with Cape Station, a vital contribution to American energy security that RBC is proud to support.”

The oversubscribed financing marks Cape Station’s shift from early-stage and bridge funding to a long-term, non-recourse capital structure, according to the news release.

“Non-recourse financing has historically been considered out of reach for first-of-a-kind projects,” David Ulrey, CFO of Fervo Energy, said in a news release. “Cape Station disrupts that narrative. With proven oil and gas technology paired with AI-enabled drilling and exploration, robust commercial offtake, operational consistency, and an unrelenting focus on health and safety, we have shown that EGS is a highly bankable asset class.”

Fervo continues to be one of the top-funded startups in the Houston area. The company has raised about $1.5 billion prior to the latest $421 million. It also closed a $462 million Series E in December.

According to Axios Pro, Fervo filed for an IPO that would value the company between $2 billion and $3 billion in January.

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This article first appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Houston food giant Sysco to acquire competitor in $29 billion deal

Mergers & Acquisitions

Sysco, the nation's largest food distributor, will acquire supplier Restaurant Depot in a deal worth more than $29 billion.

The acquisition would create a closer link between Sysco and its customers that right now turn to Restaurant Depot for supplies needed quickly in an industry segment known as “cash-and-carry wholesale.”

Sysco, based in Houston, serves more than 700,000 restaurants, hospitals, schools, and hotels, supplying them with everything from butter and eggs to napkins. Those goods are typically acquired ahead of time based on how much traffic that restaurants typically see.

Restaurant Depot offers memberships to mom-and-pop restaurants and other businesses, giving them access to warehouses stocked with supplies for when they run short of what they've purchased from suppliers like Sysco.

It is a fast growing and high-margin segment that will likely mean thousands of restaurants will rely increasingly on Sysco for day-to-day needs.

Restaurant Depot shareholders will receive $21.6 billion in cash and 91.5 million Sysco shares. Based on Sysco’s closing share price of $81.80 as of March 27, 2026, the deal has an enterprise value of about $29.1 billion.

Restaurant Depot was founded in Brooklyn in 1976. The family-run business then known as Jetro Restaurant Depot, has become the nation's largest cash-and-carry wholesaler.

The boards of both companies have approved the acquisition, but it would still need regulatory approval.

Shares of Sysco Corp. tumbled 13% Monday to $71.26, an initial decline some industry analysts expected given the cost of the deal.

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