Venture Houston — a two-day virtual conference put on by the HX Venture Fund — is slated for Thursday and Friday of this week, and, in addition to several panels, the event has a startup pitch competition with over $1.7 million on the line.

Judges selected 30 semifinalists and assigned to three different tracks — each named for a Houston sports team — for the competition. The semifinals will take place on Thursday, February 4, at 1:30 pm. Two startups from each track will move on to compete in the finals on Friday, February 5, at 1:30 pm. Three winners will claim cash prizes — first place will win $15,000 from Halliburton Labs, second place will win $10,000 from Softeq, and third place will win $5,000 from ChampionX.

InnovationMap is the media partner for Venture Houston. Click here to register for the two-day virtual event.

There are also 11 investment prizes on the line, and all of the 30 semifinalists are eligible to win those:

• $500,000 from Fitz Gate Ventures
• $250,000 from The Artemis Fund
• $250,000 from Montrose Lane
• $250,000 from Live Oak Venture Partners
• $150,000 from Carnrite Ventures
• $100,000 from Mercury Fund
• $100,000 from Next Coast Ventures
• $50,000 from Houston Angel Network
• $50,000 from Texas Halo Fund
• $50,000 from Plug and Play
• $25,000 from baMa

Astros Track

Graphic courtesy of HX

Pitching order for this track is:

1. Belmont Technology Inc - Jean-Marie Laigle
2. Cemvita Factory - Blake Manuel
3. Data Gumbo - AndrewBruce
4. MacroFab - MishaGovshteyn
5. Mainline - Chris Buckner
6. Orbital Traction - Stuart Schaaf
7. PATH EX - Sinead Miller
8. Syzygy Plasmonics - Trevor Best
9. Topl - Kim Raath
10. Venus Aerospace - Sarah Duggleby

Dynamo Track

Graphic courtesy of HX

Pitching order for this track is:

1. Bondwell Technologies - David Howell
2. CaseCTRL - Pamela Singh
3. Cinevva - Mariana Muntean
4. Connectus Global - Michael Anderson
5. Conversifi - Steven Krubiner
6. DOSS - Bobby Bryant
7. Koda Health - Tatiana Fofanova
8. Sibme - David Wakefield
9. The Postage - Emily Cisek
10. Work & Mother - AbbeyDonnell

Rockets Track 

Graphic courtesy of HX

Pitching order for this track is:

1. CellChorus - Daniel Meyer
2. Finboa - Dheeraj Singal
3. Galen Data - Chris DuPont
4. HTX Labs - Scott Schneider
5. Keto A.I Inc. - Jeff Jenson
6. Lodgeur - Sebastien Long
7. Nesh - Sidd Gupta
8. ORDRS - Erik Ibarra
9. Spark Biomedical Inc - Daniel Powell
10. Grant Source - Allen Thorton