3 Houston innovators to know this week

Who's who

The three Houston innovators to know this week represent new, exciting things for the innovation ecosystem. Courtesy photos

The movers and shakers within the Houston innovation ecosystem come from all kinds of industries — from private equity to supercomputing. This week's innovators to know reflect that industry diversity and are bringing something new to the table.

Jon Nordby, managing director of Houston's MassChallenge Texas chapter

Jon Nordby, former exec at Houston Exponential, will lead the inaugural Houston MassChallenge cohort. Courtesy of MassChallenge

Jon Nordby, who recently served as Houston Exponential's director of strategy since its launch, was named as the managing director of MassChallenge Texas in Houston, a zero-equity startup accelerator.

"MassChallenge's not-for-profit, no equity model is uniquely suited to accelerate the development of Houston's innovation ecosystem and is the foundation early-stage startups need to get to the point of disruption or pivot as fast as possible," says Nordby in a release.

Before HX, Nordby served as vice president of talent and innovation at the Greater Houston Partnership, and was essential in creating the organization's Innovation Initiative. Click here to learn more about the appointment.

Matthew Lamont, managing director at DownUnder GeoSolutions

Matthew Lamont is managing director at DownUnder GeoSolutions which just opened its new, powerful data center west of Houston. Courtesy of DUG

Matthew Lamont isn't technically a Houstonian, but the managing director of Perth, Australia-based DownUnder GeoSolutions gets the honorary title for bringing one of the world's most powerful supercomputers, nicknamed Bubba, to the Houston area. In fact, perhaps Lamont accepts the recognition on behalf of Bubba, who — while inanimate — is definitely a Houstonian.

DUG is heavily investing in Houston, and Bubba is just the start. The company plans to start on a friend for Bubba later this year and bring an even more powerful supercomputer to the market by 2021. Read more about Lamont, Bubba, and all that DUG is doing in Houston here.

Taseer Badar, founder and CEO of ZT Corporate

Taseer Badar is in the business of making money. Courtesy of ZT Corporate

Taseer Badar will shoot it to you straight: Houston startups struggling to find capital might need to look nationally or globally.

"Investors in Houston want positive earnings before interest, tax, and amortization," he says. "But that doesn't mean it's not possible in New York, Dallas, Austin, or other cities. There are technology conferences everywhere, that's a great way to get known as a startup."

As CEO and founder of ZT Corporate with 1,000 investors to manage, he knows private equity, and what it takes to invest. Read more about Badar here.

Taseer Badar is in the business of making money. Courtesy of ZT Corporate

Private equity executive talks diversifying and Houston's investment ecosystem

Featured innovator

It's Taseer Badar's job to keep 1,000 investors happy. As CEO and founder of ZT Corporate, that's just a day in the life for him.

Badar has been in the business for over 20 years, and before that, he was on Wall Street as a financial adviser for Morgan Stanley. He realized the dollar went further in his hometown of Houston, so he came back. He started advising on business plans for people he knew, and earned a lot of loyalty from these early entrepreneurs, and grew ZT from there. He found his way into health care, which made up a good majority of his holdings, until about four years ago when he diversified his company and got into the automotive industry.

Last year, the company celebrated its largest exit — Altus Infusion — and acquisition — six Neighbors ER clinics. He created a nonprofit foundation —The Altus Foundation — and raised over $1 million for assistance for underserved families. Over the past 20 years, Badar grew his company from $28 million in revenue to over $600 million — with no end in sight.

Badar spoke with InnovationMap about his career, the health care industry, and what its like to be in private equity in Houston.

InnovationMap: You've recently diversified to include a startup in your portfolio. Tell me about that company.

Taseer Badar: We have group called Accountable Care as an entity, which we are sustaining analytics. It's the opposite of a fee for service business. It used to be that if a patient got sick, we treat you. Now, it's preventive care. We have a pilot of around 40,000 patients right now. It has a lot of potential and it keeps people healthier. How it works is insurance companies pay you to keep their consumer healthy. Let's say an insurance company pays us $100, and we treat them for $85 and keep the rest for our investors.

IM: How does Houston’s investment ecosystem compare to other cities you work in?

TB: For me, it was really hard to move into that. I am very traditional. We're not a risk-based company; we're very risk averse. For me, this fit into our business. It fell in my lap. I do think generally it's a conservative ecosystem, in my opinion. We're not San Francisco — we're not built like that. Not saying no one does it. I was in New York, and those are the guys who understand [venture capital]. In Houston, we understand oil and gas, and we understand medical and real estate. I think we're way off for the startup [investment] here.

IM: With that being said, what is your advice for tech startups seeking capital, then?

TB: Investors in Houston want positive earnings before interest, tax, and amortization. But that doesn't mean it's not possible in New York, Dallas, Austin, or other cities. There are technology conferences everywhere, that's a great way to get known as a startup.

IM: How have you seen the health care industry evolve?

TB: Texas is a state that has a lot of doctors that are entrepreneurial. I personally feel as though that a lot of the Obamacare, and the accountable care, a lot of practices have been bought by hospitals, so you don't see a lot of freestanding medical practices as much as I used to. At the same time, a lot of the younger doctors aren't as business oriented and want more work-life balance. Because there's less of them, there are opportunities for companies like mine to take care of them. When I started, Altus was one of 50 companies of its kind. Now, we are one of two or three standing in Houston with that type of model.

IM: What are the challenges of managing investors?

TB: We have a lot of retail investors. They are great, and it's much more relation based. But, at the same time, a very high-touch business. That requires a lot of time and effort in a relationship. It's a lot more managing of the process.

IM: What do you look for in an investor?

TB: We look for investors that are accredited investors, and we want someone who understands there's a time horizon, who are looking for an income and an exit play between three and seven years. Someone who understands risk and that it's not buying a stock that can be liquidated.

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Portions of this interview have been edited.

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Houston startup unveils its innovative leather alternative at the rodeo

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Last month’s Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo stirred up another rootin’ tootin’ time for Houstonians and beyond.

But before the annual event galloped into the sunset, there were quite a few memorable innovations on display, with one notably coming from Rheom Materials.

The Houston-based pioneer of next-generation materials presented its scalable, bio-based alternative known as Shorai, a 93 percent bio-based leather, through two custom, western-inspired outfits that showed off cowboy flair through a sustainable lens.

“I'm a Houstonian, I love the rodeo,” Megan Beck, Rheom’s business development manager, recalls. “We're sitting there talking about it one day and we're like, ‘Okay, we've got to do something with this leather to show people how good it can look in apparel, how easy it is to wear.’”

Buoyed by the idea that their materials are meant to “change your impact, not your life,” Rheom captured the real-life energy of their bio-leather outfits under the rodeo’s neon lights in a short commercial video and photo shoot with models donning the samples, while dancing and enjoying the festivities. Rheom created a skirt, a leather jacket, and then a leather top for the look.

“Houston is such a vibrant city,” Beck says. “There's so much innovation here. I think the rodeo is just a really, really great example of that. And so we wanted to take this opportunity to take some of these garments out there and go on the slide, go on some of the rides, go into the wine garden and go dancing, because if you've ever felt some of the materials in the market in this space, they're very stiff, you can't really move in them, they're a little fragile, they kind of fall apart.”

Not only do the models in the video look fashionable, but they also look comfortable, and the leather looks natural and supple. And to the naked eye, Shorai appears to be like the leather most wearers are accustomed to.

“What we really wanted to showcase in this is the energy and the movement of the leather, and to show people how good it can look in apparel, and how easy it is to wear, which I think we were able to accomplish,” Beck says.

Next up, Beck says Rheom wants to scale production of Shorai, the Japanese word for “future,” at a competitive price point, while also reducing its carbon footprint by 80 percent when compared to synthetic leather. According to Beck, Rheom plans to see Shorai products come to market sometime this year.

“We have companies globally right now that are testing materials, that are prototyping, that are making garments, making handbags and footwear, and making eyewear because we have a plastic, as well,” Beck says. “So, this year, I do believe we'll start seeing those products actually come to market, which is very, very exciting for us.”

And with their large-scale production partner already set up for Shorai, Rheom plans to start its first production run of the product soon.

“In April, we'll actually be starting our first production run,” Beck says. “We'll be doing it at full scale, full width, and a full run of materials. So over the next five years, we're only going to just try to increase that capacity.”

Texas is home to second largest population of millionaires in the U.S.

The Millionaires Club

Tilman Fertitta, Elon Musk, Alice Walton, and Jerry Jones are members of the billionaires club in Texas. But just how many millionaires does the Lone Star State boast?

Altogether, 73,930 Texans were classified as millionaire tax filers in 2022, according to an analysis of IRS data by digital marketing firm Hennessey Digital. (For context, that millionaire count is just a few thousand shy of the entire population of Missouri City.) This figure puts Texas in the No. 2 spot for the country’s biggest population of millionaire taxpayers, behind first-place California.

However, if you crunch the figures a different way, Texas’ millionaire status isn’t quite as impressive, demonstrating that not everything is bigger in Texas. Texas ranks 10th among the states with the highest proportions of millionaire taxpayers, the study indicates. According to Hennessey Digital’s calculations, 27.1 of every 10,000 Texas tax filers reported adjusted gross income of at least $1 million for the 2022 tax year.

“The state’s booming economy, driven by energy, technology, and business-friendly policies, contributes to its wealthy population,” says Hennessey Digital.

Forbes ranked 43 Texans among the 400 wealthiest Americans last year, with Elon Musk topping the list. Houston hospitality king, Rockets owner, and newly appointed ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta was the 12th richest Texan and the 99th richest person in the United States, according to Forbes.

Which state comes out on top for the largest share of millionaire taxpayers? Connecticut, with 44.76 millionaire tax filers for every 10,000 filers, the Hennessey study shows. A number of well-to-do Connecticut suburbs are situated just a commuter train ride away from New York City, where bankers, brokers, and others pull in the big bucks. (Connecticut sits two spots above New York state in the millionaire ranking.)

The numbers in the study “highlight the diverse economic landscapes across our nation. States with favorable tax policies and thriving industries tend to attract more high-income earners,” says Jason Hennessey, CEO of Hennessey Digital. “Understanding these patterns can provide valuable insights for businesses and individuals making decisions about where to live, work, or invest.”

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This story originally appeared on our sister site, CultureMap.com.

Remote workers in Houston earn far more than commuters, data shows

by the numbers

In the Houston metro area, it pays to work from home.

Data published recently by the U.S. Census Bureau shows remote workers in the Houston metro earn 40 percent more than their commuting counterparts. For remote workers in the Houston area, median earnings stood at $67,500 in 2023, compared with $48,200 for other workers.

Federal data cited by Visual Capitalist indicates 11.8 percent of the Houston area’s labor pool, or nearly 460,000 people, were remote workers in 2023.

In the Dallas metro area, the difference in median earnings between remote workers and non-remote workers is even more stark. According to Census Bureau data, remote workers there earned $77,000 in 2023 — 50.7 percent more than the $51,100 for traditional workers.

Why the wide gap in pay? The Census Bureau says remote workers are more likely to be older, more likely to be white and less likely to live below the poverty line. All of these traits contribute to higher income.

Among home-based workers in the country’s five biggest metros, median earnings for remote workers were highest in the New York and Chicago areas (over $80,000) and lowest in the Houston area (under $70,000), according to the Census Bureau.

The five-metro comparison also reveals that the Houston area had the highest share (6.8 percent) of all workers, both remote and non-remote, living below the federal poverty level.

In a recent Substack post, urban planner Bill Fulton notes that remote workers in major cities typically earn 50 percent to 80 percent more than other workers do. He declares that “remote workers are far more affluent than everybody else. They are, of course, office workers, not blue-collar or service workers, and they tend to be more highly educated.”
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