3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Omair Tariq of Cart.com, Amanda Marciel of Rice University, and Youngro Lee of Brassica. Photos courtesy

Editor's note: Welcome to another Monday edition of Innovators to Know. Today I'm introducing you to three Houstonians to read up about — three individuals behind recent innovation and startup news stories in Houston as reported by InnovationMap. Learn more about them and their recent news below by clicking on each article.


Omair Tariq, co-founder and CEO of Cart.com

Omair Tariq of Cart.com joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to share his confidence in Houston as the right place to scale his unicorn. Photo via Cart.com

Last November, Houston-founded logistics tech company Cart.com announced that it would be returning its headquarters to Houston after spending the last two years growing in Austin. But Co-Founder and CEO Omair Tariq says that while the corporate address may have changed, he actually never left.

"I've been in Houston now forever — and I don't think I'm planning on leaving anytime soon. I love Houston — this city has given me everything I have," Tariq says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "I even love the traffic and everything people hate about Houston."

Tariq, who was born in Pakistan and grew up in Dubai before relocating as a teen to Houston, shared his entrepreneurial journey on the show, which included starting a jewelry business and being an early employee at Blinds.com before it was acquired in 2014 by Home Depot. Continue reading.

Amanda Marciel, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice University

In addition to supporting Amanda Marciel's research, the funds will also go toward creating opportunities in soft matter research for undergraduates and underrepresented scientists at Rice University. Photo by Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University

An assistant professor at Rice University has won one of the highly competitive National Science Foundation's CAREER Awards.

The award grants $670,406 over five years to Amanda Marciel, the William Marsh Rice Trustee Chair of chemical and biomolecular engineering, to continue her research in designing branch elastomers that return to their original shape after being stretched, according to a statement from Rice. The research has applications in stretchable electronics and biomimetic tissues.

“My goal is to create a new paradigm for designing elastomers,” Marciel said in a statement. “The research has four aims: to determine the role of comb polymer topology in forming elastomers, understanding the effects of that topology on elastomer mechanics, characterizing its effects on elastomer structure and increasing the intellectual diversity in soft matter research.” Continue reading.

Youngro Lee, founder of Brassica

Youngro Lee is celebrating the acquisition of his company, Brassica. Photo courtesy

A Houston fintech innovator is celebrating his latest startup's exit.

Brassica Technologies Inc., a fintech infrastructure company that's provides a platform for alternative assets, has been acquired by BitGo, a Palo Alto, California-based tech company with digital asset services. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Joining forces with BitGo is a significant step towards Brassica's ultimate vision of building the financial infrastructure of the future," Youngro Lee, founder and CEO of Brassica, says in a news release. "Our strength lies in our 'one stop shop' approach of providing API-enabled infrastructure for the alternative assets industry. Continue reading.

Four-year-old Brassica has been acquired. Photo via brassicafin.com

Houston fintech startup acquired by California unicorn

M&A moves

A Houston fintech innovator is celebrating his latest startup's exit.

Brassica Technologies Inc., a fintech infrastructure company that's provides a platform for alternative assets, has been acquired by BitGo, a Palo Alto, California-based tech company with digital asset services. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Joining forces with BitGo is a significant step towards Brassica's ultimate vision of building the financial infrastructure of the future," Youngro Lee, founder and CEO of Brassica, says in a news release. "Our strength lies in our 'one stop shop' approach of providing API-enabled infrastructure for the alternative assets industry.

"This sector is rapidly growing and bringing in new investors around the world," Lee continues. "Our technology-focused development, combined with our deep domain expertise in securities and banking laws, uniquely position us in the market, especially for sophisticated clients dealing with the complexities of private securities and digital assets."

Lee founded Brassica in 2020 after his first fintech company, NextSeed, was acquired by Republic. Brassica raised its $8 million seed round led by Houston-based Mercury last year.

The acquisition is a strategic move by BitGo, which was valued at $1.75 billion last year, according to the company after its $100 million raise. Adding Brassica's suite of technology expands on BitGo's ability to grow its customer base.

"We currently have a dichotomy in financial services — one side deals with traditional securities and the other deals with up-and-coming blockchain-based assets and cryptocurrencies," Mike Belshe, CEO of BitGo, says in the release. "With this acquisition, BitGo becomes the first major financial services firm to be able to provide comprehensive infrastructure support for both traditional private securities and blockchain-based assets, while significantly expanding our global presence."

Last year, Lee joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss Brassica and his overarching mission of democratizing fintech and investment tools. He explains there hasn't been a seamless solution created for the backend of alternative asset transactions, things like custody of those assets or transferring and keeping track of them.

"The reason why I thought this was what I wanted to focus on next was exactly because it was an issue I struggled with as a founder of NextSeed," Lee says on the show. "The backend was always an issue. There's not one single vendor that we felt really understood our business, was doing it efficiently, or enabled us to deliver those services to our end clients."

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Youngro Lee of Brassica, Anu Puvvada of KPMG Studio, and Brock Murphy of Parent ProTech. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from corporate innovation to fintech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.


Youngro Lee, founder of Brassica

Youngro Lee joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his latest endeavor on his mission to democratize investing. Photo courtesy

Brassica Technologies, a fintech infrastructure company that's providing a platform for alternative assets, is just the next step in his career in using tech to democratize finance. The idea came from Lee's experience as a startup founder and fintech exec — first at NextSeed and then at Republic, which acquired NextSeed two years ago.

"The reason why I thought this was what I wanted to focus on next was exactly because it was an issue I struggled with as a founder of NextSeed," Lee says on the show. "The backend was always an issue. There's not one single vendor that we felt really understood our business, was doing it efficiently, or enabled us to deliver those services to our end clients."

Lee shares more about the future of Brassica, including the challenges he's facing within regulation and the state of fintech as a whole, on the podcast. He also weighs in on how he's seen the Houston innovation ecosystem grow and develop alongside his own entrepreneurial journey. Read more.

Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader

Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio leader, shares how her team is advancing software solutions while navigating hype cycles and solving billion-dollar-problems. Photo courtesy of KPMG

In 2021, KPMG, a New York-based global audit, accounting, and advisory service provider, formed a new entity to play in the innovation space. The Houston-based team finds innovative software that benefit KPMG's clients across industries.

In an interview with InnovationMap, Anu Puvvada, leader of KPMG Studio, shares more about the program, its first spin out, and why she's passionate about leading this initiative from Houston.

"When you think about innovation as a whole, it's mired with risk and uncertainty," she says. "You never know if something's going to work or not. And part of what we have to do with any idea that we're building in the studio or anything that our clients are doing around innovation, we have to do as much as we can to mitigate that risk and uncertainty. And that's kind of what KPMG's wheelhouse is." Read more.

Brock Murphy, Parent ProTech co-founder

Brock Murphy launched Parent ProTech last fall. Photo via parentprotech.com

Houston-based Parent ProTech is a one-stop shop for parental education on technology and applications that their kids use.

“Our goal is to make everyone the best digital parent possible,” Brock Murphy, Parent ProTech co-founder, tells InnovationMap. “We understand technology and the role it plays in influencing the next generation. So we help parents when it comes to understanding the platforms, how to use them and how to unlock the parental controls that can be hidden, deeper into these platforms.”

Murphy — with co-founder Drew Wooten and creative director Joshua Adams — launched the platform in September 2022. Since then, Parent ProTech has made its mark through partnerships with schools in Texas. Read more.

Youngro Lee joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss his latest endeavor on his mission to democratize investing. Photo courtesy

Houston entrepreneur furthers mission of democratizing finance with latest venture

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 186

After seeing through an exit of his first startup NextSeed, lawyer-turned-entrepreneur Youngro Lee took on a leadership role at the acquiring company, Republic. But his fintech innovation wheels kept turning.

"Brassica is, I personally consider, an extension and a national evolution of my original starting point," Lee says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, "which is basically to democratize finance so that everyone can have access to alternative assets as part of their wealth management investments or even for pleasure to just be able to invest in things they believe in."

Brassica Technologies Inc. is a fintech infrastructure company that's providing a platform for alternative assets, Lee explains. While investments in the public markets have platforms already, there are other investment opportunities that are managed in a less optimized way for investors.

Lee says there hasn't been a seamless solution created for the backend of these transactions, things like custody of those assets or transferring and keeping track of them.

"The reason why I thought this was what I wanted to focus on next was exactly because it was an issue I struggled with as a founder of NextSeed," Lee says on the show. "The backend was always an issue. There's not one single vendor that we felt really understood our business, was doing it efficiently, or enabled us to deliver those services to our end clients."

Lee says he has been working on addressing this gap in the market for the past two years under his role at Republic. After holding an executive position at the company as a whole, he currently oversees the Asian market as general partner of Republic Asia.

"We didn't know where this process was going to go. It was a corporate initiative to try to understand what the market needs — because we needed it," Lee says. "We quickly realized that this idea can be really big. Once we had that conclusion, that the problem we're trying to solve and the opportunity that the market presents is significant enough, we knew Brassica deserves to be its own company."

Shortly after that, Lee started reaching out to potential investors and raised an $8 million seed round to take the company out of stealth last month. Houston-based Mercury Fund led the round, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Long Journey Ventures, NGC Fund, Neowiz, Broadhaven Ventures, Armyn Capital, VC3DAO, Alpha Asset Management (Korea), and other global FinTech investors participated in the round.

Lee shares more about the future of Brassica, including the challenges he's facing within regulation and the state of fintech as a whole, on the podcast. He also weighs in on how he's seen the Houston innovation ecosystem grow and develop alongside his own entrepreneurial journey. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby of Venus Aerospace, Youngro Lee of Brassica, and Le Dam of myAvos. Photos courtesy

3 Houston innovators to know this week

WHO'S WHO

Editor's note: In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from rocket science to fintech — recently making headlines in Houston innovation.

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby, CEO and co-founder of Venus Aerospace

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby of Venus Aerospace joins the Houston Innovators Podcast this week. Photo courtesy of Venus

Sarah "Sassie" Duggleby and her husband were living in Japan and considering a trip back to Texas and wishing there was a faster option than a full day of international travel — with their kids, no less. That's when Andrew Duggleby told Sassie that there actually might be an engine that could do that.

Flash forward a few years, and the husband-wife team has built a company around that idea. Venus Aerospace, originally founded in California, relocated to Houston in 2021 to establish their company in an ecosystem with the tools to advance their tech — and give their employees a good work-life balance, Sassie Duggleby explains on the Houston Innovators Podcast.

"We knew we had to find a location where we could test our engine and still be home for dinner," she says on the show. "Our company vision is 'home for dinner.' We want to fly you across the globe and have you home for dinner. And, if you work for us, we want you home for dinner." Read more.

Youngro Lee has announced funding for his latest fintech endeavor. Photo courtesy

Youngro Lee is no stranger to shaking up the finance world with a new tech-based way of doing business. One of the founders of NextSeed, Lee's newest mission is providing "investment infrastructure as a service" with his company, Brassica, which just raised $8 million in seed funding.

“The future of finance will depend on the ability of trustworthy institutions to provide secure and seamless transitions between traditional financial services and web3 innovations while complying with strict regulations and still providing great customer experience,” says Lee in the news release.

Houston-based Mercury Fund led the round with several other investors participating. Read more.

Le Dam, CEO and founder of OptiChroniX

Le Dam moved from California to Houston to build her company. Photo via LinkedIn

After years on the West Coast, Le Dam has returned to her adopted hometown of Houston — just in time to launch a new app dedicated to providing health resources and information to its users.

“I always knew that I wanted to build my business in Houston,” Dam says, mentioning the assets of the world’s largest medical center, a thriving startup community, and diverse population for whom she wants to build her technology.

myAvos pairs with a user’s smart watch and harnesses their health information such as physical activity and hours slept. The user can also input additional information such as blood test results and meals eaten. The app analyzes the information provided and assesses the user’s risk for chronic illness later in life. Read more.

A Houston fintech startup is aiming to modernize banking and investing — and has received fresh funding to do it. Photo via Getty Images

Houston fintech startup raises $8M seed round led by local VC

fresh funds

A Houston startup has raised millions for its fintech platform — and the company didn't have to go very far to find its lead investor.

Brassica Technologies Inc. closed its seed round at $8 million with Houston-based Mercury Fund leading the round. Valor Equity Partners, Long Journey Ventures, NGC Fund, Neowiz, Broadhaven Ventures, Armyn Capital, VC3DAO, Alpha Asset Management (Korea), and other global FinTech investors participated in the round as well.

The startup's platform has "institutional-grade solutions for the new era of private investing and alternative assets," per the release. Serving the alternative assets industry, Brassica's tools can easily integrate with any operating system to provide proprietary technology and unique regulatory licenses. The technology aims to modernize key banking and investing infrastructure to help enterprises safely grow their business and protect their customer assets.

With its "investment infrastructure as a service" model, Brassica was co-founded in 2021 by two familiar faces in Houston's fintech scene. CEO Youngro Lee and CTO Bob Dunton were behind NextSeed, a crowdfunding platform that allowed businesses to raise investment funding online. The startup was acquired in 2020 by Republic, where Lee currently serves as executive vice president and head of Asia.

“The future of finance will depend on the ability of trustworthy institutions to provide secure and seamless transitions between traditional financial services and web3 innovations while complying with strict regulations and still providing great customer experience,” says Lee in the news release.

“Today’s infrastructure solutions for alternative assets are often cobbled together through multiple incompatible vendors in a complex regulatory environment, which often creates unreasonable risk, errors, and single points of failure for market participants," he continues. "We started Brassica to address this fundamental problem and provide solutions to enable innovators in both traditional and web3 industries to build properly within a constantly evolving global regulatory framework.”

Along with the seed round news, the company has announced that Brassica Trust Company, its wholly-owned subsidiary, has received a Trust Charter by the Wyoming State Banking Board.

“The revolution of the private markets is here, and it is clear that the traditional, legacy infrastructure currently in place is not designed for the present and future investment world,” says Blair Garrou, managing director at Mercury Fund, in the release. “Brassica’s API-forward, institutional grade solutions make investing in private and digital assets more trustworthy, compliant, and secure than ever before, further bridging the gap between the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance. Their highly qualified and experienced senior business, legal, and technology executive team makes Brassica well-positioned to usher in this new era of alternative investments. We are proud to support Brassica on their ongoing mission to democratize finance globally.”

The company plans to use the funding to grow its product, engineering, business development, and customer success teams, per the news release, as well as develop a trust operations team in Wyoming. Current leadership includes former execs from Republic, Cleary Gottlieb, Kirkland Ellis, Morgan Stanley, Custodia Bank, LedgerX, Prime Trust, JP Morgan Chase, and M1 Finance.

Youngro Lee has announced funding for his latest fintech endeavor. Photo courtesy

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Rice scientist earns $600K NSF award to study distractions in digital age

fresh funding

Rice University psychologist Kirsten Adam has received a $600,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to research how visual distractions like phone notifications, flashing alerts, crowded screens and busy workspaces can negatively impact focus—and how the brain works to try to regain it.

The highly competitive five-year NSF grants are given to career faculty members with the potential to serve as academic models and leaders in research and education. Adam’s work will aim to clarify how the brain refocuses in the age of screens, instant gratification and other lingering distractions. The funding will also be used to train graduate students in advanced cognitive neuroscience methods, expand access to electroencephalography (EEG) and for public data sharing.

“Kirsten is a valued member of the School of Social Sciences, and we are thrilled that she has been awarded the prestigious NSF CAREER,” Rachel Kimbro, dean of social sciences, said in a news release. “Because distractions continue to increase all around us, her research is timely and imperative to understanding their widespread impacts on the human brain.”

In Adam’s lab, participants complete simplified visual search tasks while their brain activity is recorded using EEG, allowing researchers to measure attention shifts in real time. This process then captures the moment attention is drawn from a goal and how much effort it takes to refocus.

According to Rice, Adam’s work will test long-standing theories about distraction. The research is meant to have real-world implications for jobs and aspects of everyday life where attention to detail is key, including medical imaging, airport security screening and even driving.

“At any given moment, there’s far more information in the world than our brains can process,” Adam added in the release. “Attention is what determines what reaches our awareness and what doesn’t.”

Additionally, the research could inform the design of new technologies that would support focus and decision-making, according to Rice.

“We’re not trying to make attention limitless,” Adam added. “We’re trying to understand how it actually works, so we can stop designing environments and expectations that fight against it.”

12 Houston climatetech startups join Greentown Labs' growing incubator

Startup Talk

More than 40 climatetech startups joined the Greentown Labs Houston community in the second half of 2025, 12 of which hail from the Bayou City.

The companies are among a group of nearly 70 total that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in Q3 and Q4.

The new companies that have joined the Houston incubator specialize in a variety of clean energy applications, from green hydrogen-producing water-splitting cycles to drones that service wind turbines.

The local startups that joined Greentown Houston include:

  • Houston-based Wise Energie, which delivers turnkey microgrids that blend vertical-axis wind, solar PV, and battery storage into a single, silent system.
  • The Woodlands-based Resollant, which is developing compact, zero-emissions hydrogen and carbon reactors to provide low-cost, scalable clean hydrogen and high-purity carbon for the energy and manufacturing sectors.
  • Houston-based ClarityCastle, which designs and manufactures modular, soundproof work pods that replace traditional drywall construction with reusable, low-waste alternatives made from recycled materials.
  • Houston-based WattSto Energy, which manufactures vanadium redox flow batteries to deliver long-duration storage for both grid-scale projects and off-grid microgrids.
  • Houston-based AMPeers, which delivers advanced, high-temperature superconductors in the U.S. at a fraction of traditional costs.
  • Houston-based Biosimo, which is developing bio-based platform chemicals, pioneering sustainable chemistry for a healthier planet and economy.
  • Houston-based Ententia, which offers purpose-built, generative AI for industry.
  • Houston-based GeoKiln Energy Innovation, which is developing a new way to produce clean hydrogen by accelerating natural geologic reactions in iron-rich rock formations using precision electrical heating.
  • Houston-based Timbergrove, which builds AI and IoT solutions that connect and optimize assets—boosting visibility, safety, and efficiency.
  • Houston-based dataVediK, which combines energy-domain expertise with advanced machine learning and intelligent automation to empower organizations to achieve operational excellence and accelerate their sustainability goals.
  • Houston-based Resonant Thermal Systems, which uses a resonant energy-transfer (RET) system to extract critical minerals from industrial and natural brines without using membranes or grid electricity.
  • Houston-based Torres Orbital Mining (TOM),which develops autonomous excavation systems for extreme environments on Earth and the moon, enabling safe, data-driven resource recovery and laying the groundwork for sustainable off-world industry.

Other startups from around the world joined the Houston incubator in the same time period, including:

More than 100 startups joined Greentown this year, according to an end-of-year reflection shared by Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter.

Flatter joined Greentown in the top leadership role in February 2025. She succeeded former CEO and president Kevin Knobloch, who stepped down in July 2024.

"I moved back to the United States in March 2025 after six years overseas—2,000 miles, three children, and one very patient husband later. Over these months, I’ve had the chance to hear from the entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, and partners who make this community thrive. What I’ve experienced has left me brimming with urgent optimism for the future we’re building together," she said in the release.

According to Flatter, Greentown alumni raised more than $2 billion this year and created more than 3,000 jobs.

"Greentown startups and ecosystem leaders—from Boston, Houston, and beyond—are showing that we can move further and faster together. That we don’t have to choose between more energy or lower emissions, or between increasing sustainability and boosting profit. I call this the power of 'and,'" Flatter added. "We’re working for energy and climate, innovation and scale, legacy industry and startups, prosperity for people and planet. The 'and' is where possibility expands."

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This article originally appeared on EnergyCaptialHTX.com.

Intuitive Machines forms partnership with Italian companies for lunar exploration services

to the moon

Houston-based space technology, infrastructure and services company Intuitive Machines has forged a partnership with two Italian companies to offer infrastructure, communication and navigation services for exploration of the moon.

Intuitive Machines’ agreement with the two companies, Leonardo and Telespazio, paves the way for collaboration on satellite services for NASA, a customer of Intuitive Machines, and the European Space Agency, a customer of Leonardo and Telespazio. Leonardo, an aerospace, defense and security company, is the majority owner of Telespazio, a provider of satellite technology and services.

“Resilient, secure, and scalable space infrastructure and space data networks are vital to customers who want to push farther on the lunar surface and beyond to Mars,” Steve Altemus, co-founder and CEO of Intuitive Machine, said in a news release.

Massimo Claudio Comparini, managing director of Leonardo’s space division, added that the partnership with Intuitive Machines is a big step toward enabling human and robotic missions from the U.S., Europe and other places “to access a robust communications network and high-precision navigation services while operating in the lunar environment.”

Intuitive Machines recently expanded its Houston Spaceport facilities to ramp up in-house production of satellites. The company’s first satellite will launch with its upcoming IM‑3 lunar mission.

Intuitive Machines says it ultimately wants to establish a “center of space excellence” at Houston Spaceport to support missions to the moon, Mars and the region between Earth and the moon.

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