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5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week

Houston startups scoring VC funding, innovators to know, and more Houston innovation news trended this week. Photo via Getty Images

Editor's note:Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included innovators to know, startups raising millions in venture capital, and more.

3 Houston innovators to know this week

This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Brooks Powell of Cheers Health, Emily Cisek of The Postage, and Andrew Bruce of Data Gumbo. Courtesy photos

In this week's roundup of Houston innovators to know, I'm introducing you to three local innovators across industries — from blockchain technology to consumer-facing innovations — recently making headlines in Houston innovation. Click here to continue reading.

Amazon delivers upgrade to Houston shoppers

Get those Fire Sticks, cables, and more even faster now. Photo courtesy of Amazon

Whether it's for fear of shopping in public or just plain convenience, using Amazon Prime just makes life easier. Now, Houstonians can enjoy even speedier service, thanks to a Jeff Bezos rocket-sized boost.

Amazon has announced that Prime members in Houston can now enjoy even faster same-day delivery. Specifically, some 3 million items originally tagged as "Today by" or "Overnight" can now be ordered for delivery throughout the day, according to a press release. Items are guaranteed to reach doorsteps in five hours. Click here to continue reading.

Houston business leaders join forces to create innovative apprenticeship program

Accenture and Aon have teamed up to promote the creation of apprenticeship programs across Houston. Photo via Getty Images

Much of the business world has operated under the belief that to enter the workforce, one must have a four-year degree. While this belief might be evolving naturally over recent years, two corporations have teamed up to move the needle even more and are launching a program that opens the hiring door much wider to promote a diversified workforce.

Last week, Accenture and Aon – with support from the Greater Houston Partnership — announced the launch of the Greater Houston Apprenticeship Network in Houston. The program aims to promote and support apprentice programs across companies in town. The duo has already rolled out similar programs across six cities in the United States and plans to create 500 new jobs by 2025. Continue reading.

Houston-based carbon negative biotech startup closes series A round

The brother-sister team at Houston-based Cemvita Factory is celebrating its series A initial closing. Photo courtesy of Cemvita

A promising Houston startup using biotechnology to reduce carbon emissions is celebrating the initial closing of its series A fundraising round.

Cemvita Factory announced the news of its round closing, but didn't disclose the amount raised. 8090 Partners, a new investment group of entrepreneurs turned investors, led the round. Existing investor Oxy Low Carbon Ventures also contributed, along with Seldor Capital, Climate Capital, and others.

Founded by brother-sister team Moji and Tara Karimi in 2017, the company's technology biomimics photosynthesis to take carbon dioxide and turn it into something else. Cemvita uses this synthetic biology to decarbonize heavy industry across chemical manufacturing, mining, and oil and gas. Continue reading.

Rapidly scaling Houston e-commerce software startup raises $98M series B

Houston-based Cart.com, which equips e-commerce businesses with a suite of software services, has raised $140 million in venture capital investment since its founding last year. Photo via cart.com

After closing a sizable series A round in April, a Houston tech startup has closed another round of funding — this time a near $100 million one.

Cart.com, an end-to-end e-commerce software startup and Amazon competitor, closed its series B round at $98 million. The investment announcement follows the company's series A in the spring and, according to a news release, brings Cart.com's total funding to $140 million since it launched eight months ago. Click here to continue reading.

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Building Houston

 
 

San Diego-based rBIO moved to Houston to take advantage of the growing ecosystem of biomanufacturing and synthetic biology. Photo via Getty Images

Cameron Owen had an idea for a synthetic biology application, and he pitched it to a handful of postdoctoral programs. When he received the feedback that he didn't have enough research experience, he decided to launch a startup based in San Diego around his idea. He figured that he'd either get the experience he needed to re-apply, or he'd create a viable company.

After three years of research and development, Owen's path seems to have taken him down the latter of those two options, and he moved his viable company, rBIO, to Houston — a twist he didn't see coming.

“Houston was not on my radar until about a year and a half ago,” Owen says, explaining that he thought of Houston as a leading health care hub, but the coasts still had an edge when it came to what he was doing. “San Diego and the Boston area are the two big biotech and life science hubs.”

But when he visited the Bayou City in December of 2021, he says he saw first hand that something new was happening.

“Companies from California like us and the coastal areas were converging here in Houston and creating this new type of bioeconomy,” he tells InnovationMap.

Owen moved to Houston last year, but rBIO still has an academic partner in Washington University in St. Louis and a clinical research organization it's working with too, so he admits rBIO's local footprint is relatively small — but not for long.

"When we look to want to get into manufacturing, we definitely want to build something here in Houston," he says. "We’re just not to that point as a company."

In terms of the stage rBIO is in now, Owen says the company is coming out of R&D and into clinical studies. He says rBIO has plans to fundraise and is meeting with potential partners that will help his company scale and build out a facility.

With the help of its CRO partner, rBIO has two ongoing clinical projects — with a third coming next month. Owen says right now rBIO is targeting the pharmaceutical industry’s biologics sector — these are drugs our bodies make naturally, like insulin. About 12 percent of the population in the United States has diabetes, which translates to almost 40 million people. The demand for insulin is high, and rBIO has a way to create it — and at 30 percent less cost.

This is just the tip of the iceberg — the world of synthetic biology application is endless.

“Now that we can design and manipulate biology in ways we’ve never been able to before,” Owen says, "we’re really only limited by our own imagination.”

Synthetic biology is a field of science that involves programing biology to create and redesign natural elements. While it sounds like science fiction, Owen compares it to any other type of technology.

“Biology really is a type of software,” he says. “Phones and computers at their core run on 1s and 0s. In biology, it’s kind of the same thing, but instead of two letters, it’s four — A, C, T, and G.”

“The cool thing about biology is the software builds the hardware,” he continues. “You put that code in there and the biology builds in and of itself.”

Owen says the industry of synthetic biology has been rising in popularity for years, but the technology has only recently caught up.

“We’re exploring a brave new world — there’s no doubt about that,” Owen says.

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