With Houston continuing to grow as a startup ecosystem, continued growth of accelerators and incubators is essential for entrepreneurs to convert their ideas into successful business ventures.
Accelerator programs are typically fixed-length, structured programs that offer companies access to mentors, business coaching and programming. Accelerators often offer financial support in the form of cash grants, debt, equity or other funding.
Incubators, on the other hand, do not have a fixed cohort length or program requirements, but instead offer an ongoing support system of coaching and connections as entrepreneurs develop their early-stage ventures.
Cities like Boston saw incubators launch in targeted areas of tech, with venture funds and universities focusing on tough tech — or emerging technology.
In Houston, one of the most significant program launches in 2022 was NASA’s launch of a tech transfer center at the Ion in July, which allows entrepreneurs to access NASA intellectual property to spin off companies. NASA Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche said the aerospace accelerator would target minority businesses.
The tech transfer center is one of Johnson’s highlights as space center director and parallels wider developments in Houston’s space economy in 2022, with locally-based Axiom Space and North Carolina-based Collins Aerospace announcing Houston facilities this year.
The Ion also partnered with Houston Methodist to launch a 1,200 square foot innovation hub in August, modeled after the Center for Innovation Technology Hub in Houston Methodist's Texas Medical Center hospital. The Houston Methodist hub is the first health care-focused hub hosted in the Ion.
Boosting opportunities for minority innovators was another theme of the Houston startup ecosystem in 2022, with innovation leaders such as Houston Exponential’s new CEO Natara Branch discussing the need to tap into the city’s diverse population and to avoid brain drain.
One such program launched in November through the efforts of Greentown Labs, a climate-focused innovation hub with a Houston location in the Ion District. Greentown Labs partnered with New England-based diversity coalition Browning the Green Space to launch Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders, with a cohort set to be announced in early 2023.
In a November interview with the Houston Business Journal, Greentown Labs’ Houston director Juliana Garaizer said diversity in the climate tech ecosystem had not been prioritized previously.
“We were much more intentional in our hiring [in 2022],” Garaizer said. “We hired a DEI director, a DEI consultant, and we started figuring out how we could be a role model for our entrepreneurs.
Greentown Labs also targeted younger entrepreneuers with its November launch of the Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange for Energy, TEX-E — an initiative aimed at creating a student-driven entrepreneurship ecosystem in Houston, with a focus on energy innovation.
Another accelerator program targeting an entrepreneur demographic in 2022 was DivInc Houston, which announced its first cohort in September. The cohort’s demo day took place in December, a culmination of its goal of partnering women founder with sources of capital that they do not always have access to.
