The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship is welcoming 17 participants to its summer accelerators — the largest group in the 11-year history of these programs.
The OwlSpark tech startup accelerator, which was founded in 2013, and the BlueLaunch accelerator, which started in 2022 and is tailored for non-tech entrepreneurs, are designed for Rice University students, faculty, recent alumni and staff.
This year's participants have a range of business ideas in industries such as health care, food and beverage, pet care, disaster recovery, clean energy, software, education and consumer products.
“I’m excited to support these new ventures with highly curated offerings and rich mentorship, propelling them to commercial success,” said Jessica Fleenor, managing director of BlueLaunch and OwlSpark. “We have built a long-standing culture of advocacy and collaboration and look forward to upholding that in our largest cohort to date.”
The 11th OwlSpark class includes:
- Terradote: focused on manufacturing cost-competitive, petroleum-free chemicals using carbon dioxide, methane and renewable bio-based materials.
- Biomethanator: converts industrial-waste carbon dioxide to methane.
- Taurus Vascular: developing a minimally invasive catheter for addressing endoleaks, a complication of endovascular aortic aneurysm repair.
- Voythos: offers a mobile physician companion that monitors electronic medical records, prompts action and initiates care workflows.
- AiKynetix: developing a video analytics platform for human motion insights.
- AllStars: building an affect-sensitive education tool for self-studying and blended classroom learning.
- Eureka Hub: developing a marketplace that will allow data and research scientists to publish, manage, share and revise analytical models for data sets across a diverse set of applications.
- ScoutBetter: an end-to-end recruiting platform that connects students with corporate campuses and provides recruiters access to university talent.
The second BlueLaunch class includes:
- Archway Family Medicine: provides medical care to patients with a monthly membership model.
- Rdy: helps communities recover from disasters through work with local organizations.
- 610 Smokehouse: a mobile food service and catering company serving “Texas fusion,” which combines Texas barbecue with diverse Houston food.
- Serendipity Picnic: created the “BlanKIT” to provide all the essentials for a picnic wrapped in a lightweight, easy-to-carry and reusable blanket.
- La Mer Macaron: offers an assortment of homemade French macarons.
- TenTwelve: provides residential construction and remodeling services.
- DHA America: customizes, designs and sells powder-coated and galvanized fence panels, posts and accessories.
- All About Baby: creates tableware for babies transitioning to solid foods.
- MeowPlanet: a cat lounge.
“I’m thrilled to also include two startups commercializing clean energy innovations, supporting a key pillar of the strategy of Rice Business and Rice University and helping to make Houston a leader in the energy transition,” Fleenor said.
The cohorts will undergo 12 weeks of “immersive, experiential training” along with support and growth for the participating businesses, the university said. During those three months, the summer accelerators will bring together founders, industry leaders, investors, mentors and an entrepreneurial curriculum to help support those in the cohorts.
Participants of the Rice accelerators will also work with participants of accerators at the University of Houston as part of a partnership that dates back almost a decade, Rice noted. The accelerators, which are jointly run, will participate in the Bayou Startup Showcase — a community-wide demo day.
“Our collaboration is truly remarkable because during the program, the founders become so intertwined that they are unaware of which university each person belongs to, and even after the program, we maintain connections between both sides, creating a valuable network that benefits everyone involved,” said Liana Gonzalez-Schulenberg, managing director of Red Labs and Red Launch at the University of Houston.
Rice University’s Office of Innovation, which is designed to help commercialize Rice-developed research and technology, was recently announced as a tenant of the Ion.
Additionally, construction crews are currently working on building a new lab at the Ion. Rice University’s Nexus Lab will be designed for prototyping and scaling-up technologies.
