Houston is a city of innovators. With several initiatives in the city to prompt even more innovation underway, we're excited to unveil our inaugural group of Startups to Watch.
Startups to Watch has been an annual feature for our legacy Inno markets for many years — an opportunity to reflect on the past year and look ahead to the local startups poised to make headlines in 2022.
On Houston Inno's inaugural Startups to Watch list, we wanted to highlight a handful of local startups from a variety of the Bayou City's most prominent industries, including clean energy tech, biotech, life sciences, genomics — and no tech list would be complete without software-as-a-service. To arrive with this list, we reached out to Houston venture capitalists and technology industry leaders. Then, the editors chose the final list you see here. These companies have demonstrated traction in VC fundraising, growth through mergers and acquisitions, a robust headcount increase and obviously — innovation.
Cart.com
Cart.com, which announced plans to move its headquarters from Houston to Austin on Dec. 9, has all the right ingredients of a fast-growing technology startup. Since the "e-commerce-as-a-service" company launched late last year, Cart.com has made eight acquisitions and raised more than $140 million in venture capital, including a $98 million Series B funding round announced in August. The company is led by CEO Omair Tariq, who just a few years back was COO of Houston success story Blinds.com, which was acquired by Home Depot in 2014.
E-commerce was a growing trend before the coronavirus pandemic, but Cart.com launched at a time when many brick-and-mortar operations were significantly hindered by Covid-19. Today, Cart.com is working with thousands of brands to bolster their online presences with online storefronts, digital marketing and more.
GoExpedi
Houston-based GoExpedi is bringing digital enablement and e-commerce to heavy industry. Led by CEO Tim Neal — a finalist for Ernst & Young’s 2021 Entrepreneur of the Year Gulf Coast Area Awards this summer — GoExpedi supplies industrial and energy customers with equipment for maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) through its e-commerce platform. Anything that wears out, runs out or breaks on an energy or industrial asset, GoExpedi can supply to clients.
After announcing a $25 million Series C round last year, the Houston startup has expanded its services into construction and environmental, social and governance tracking. GoExpedi also brought on Yang Tang as CTO earlier this year. He previously worked as global director of engineering at Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD). Tang also worked to develop and enhance Walmart’s e-commerce strategy.
Cemvita Factory
Cemvita Factory’s technology takes would be carbon dioxide emissions and converts them into other end chemicals for use by industry. The Houston-based startup has a growing portfolio of microorganisms that capture and convert carbon dioxide into alternative fuels and chemicals — like ethylene, which is used in the production of plastics, fibers and other products.
The firm’s technology is based on research done by Tara Karimi, co-founder and chief technology officer at Cemvita, who holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and postdoctorate degrees in tissue engineering and stem cell programming. Moji Karimi, co-founder and CEO of Cemvita Factory, holds degrees in drilling and petroleum engineering and previously worked for Weatherford International PLC.
Cemvita saw significant traction in 2021 after the company closed its Series A capital raise in October.
Syzygy Plasmonics
Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics is another local startup operating in the clean technology space. The firm develops photocatalytic chemical reactor technology that uses light to trigger chemical reactions, as opposed to using heat by burning fossil fuels, like more traditional chemical processes. The Syzygy technology platform was spun out of Rice University by Rice University professors and company co-founders Naomi Halas and Peter Nordlander.
Syzygy’s first commercial reactor products are focused on distributed hydrogen. The firm’s commercial-scale units could produce hydrogen for smaller sites developing semiconductors, metal, food oil, float glass and hydrogen fuel cells, co-founder and CEO Trevor Best said.
This spring, Syzygy announced raising a $23 million Series B funding round.
Liongard
Houston-based Liongard, which develops an automated software platform for managed IT service providers, has seen rapid growth recently. The startup ranked No. 1 on the Houston Business Journal’s Fast 100 Lists the past two years. Liongard, under the leadership of CEO Joe Alapat, saw its headcount increase from around 30 employees up to 115 employees over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. This fall, the firm moved into a new office space inside of The Ion “innovation hub” located in a redeveloped Sears department store in Midtown.
IT service providers have to manage systems at scale amid a seemingly endless stream of new products, applications and cybersecurity threats. Liongard’s platform gives visibility to IT service providers across the networks of hundreds of end users to manage threats, troubleshooting or other changes.
Othram
From its labs in The Woodlands, Othram is using genome sequencing technology to assist law enforcement with cracking cold cases that were previously unsolvable. Othram has worked with dozens of agencies from across the U.S. and Canada to generate leads in cold cases, some decades old. In the case of Stephanie Isaacson, a 14-year-old killed in Las Vegas in 1989, Othram was able to positively identify a suspect using just 15 cells worth of DNA material. That typically hasn’t been enough genetic material to be able to perform a successful DNA analysis, said Othram CEO David Mittelman, a geneticist and biochemist who received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine.
This fall, Othram disclosed raising $18 million Series B funding round to expand its research and development efforts. Othram’s technology was featured in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, which aired in October.
Braincheck
Houston-based Braincheck develops brain health screening software to help patients and clinicians identify and slow down cognitive impairment. Founded in 2015, Braincheck’s software platform is now used by more than 400 neurology, primary care and geriatrics practices around the nation. Physicians at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic are using BrainCheck to conduct cognitive testing for patients.
Braincheck announced raising a $10 million Series B round led by Austin-based Next Coast Ventures and Austin-based S3 Ventures in November. UPMC Enterprises, the commercialization arm of University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and Overland Park, Kansas-based insurance company SelectQuote (NYSE: SLQT) also joined as strategic investors for BrainCheck during the round.
Sporos Bioventures
Houston-based biotechnology firm Sporos Bioventures LLC launched out of stealth mode in the middle of 2021 to catalyze the development of breakthrough therapies for cancers and immune diseases. Since launching with over $38 million in capital in May, Sporos has gone on to financially back three local biotech firms working drug candidates through the regulatory pipeline: Tvardi Therapeutics, Stellanova Therapeutics and Asylia Therapeutics.
In September, Sporos announced hiring Dr. Amit Rakhit, a biopharmaceutical executive with more than two decades of experience, as its CEO. He joined Sporos from New York-based Ovid Therapeutics Inc. (Nasdaq: OVID), where he previously served as president and chief medical officer. Sporos’ founding CFO and board chair, Michael Wyzga, was previously CFO of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Genzyme.
Mainline.gg
Houston-based Mainline.gg is one of the most prominent companies in town operating in the esports space. Mainline develops custom video game tournament software for colleges, universities and esports leagues across the U.S. In 2019, Mainline partnered with ESPN for the sports media giant’s first-ever collegiate esports championship, where the startup handled many of the event’s broadcast and production elements. Last summer, Mainline and Learfield IMG College partnered with the Big 12 Conference on a Madden NFL 20 tournament.
Mainline is led by CEO Chris Buckner, who stepped into the leadership position when the esports startup was spun out of Houston-based digital marketing company FanReact in 2019. Mainline announced raising a $6.8 million Series A funding round in November 2019.
Nauticus Robotics
Nauticus Robotics, which rebranded from Houston Mechatronics Inc. on Dec. 1, makes robots that can reach some pretty remote places deep underwater. One of the company’s flagship products is the Aquanaut, a subsea robot that can morph between a long-range autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) to a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) capable of performing intricate tasks underwater. Nauticus also develops the Olympic Arm, automated arm hardware capable of performing tasks underwater using a variety of tools. The company’s technology is used to serve customers in oil and gas, renewables, defense, subsea mining, aquaculture, offshore data centers, port security and management and other sectors.
Nauticus is led by co-founder, CEO and CTO Nic Radford, who previously led NASA’s humanoid robotics efforts for the International Space Station and future Mars missions.
