7 Houston business leaders named winners, finalists in national EY Entrepreneur Of The Year awards

Two local business leaders are among 12 national winners of Ernst & Young LLP's 2023 Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.

CEO Gaurab Chakrabarti and Chief Technology Officer Sean Hunt co-founded Houston-based specialty chemical company Solugen Inc. — a "unicorn" thanks to some major funding rounds in recent years — in 2016.

EY judges described Solugen as a “textbook startup launched by two partners with $10,000 in seed money that is revolutionizing the chemical refining industry. The innovation-driven company is tackling impactful, life-changing issues important to the planet.”

Last month, Solugen struck a deal with Chicago-based food processing giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (NYSE: ADM) to build a 500,000-square-foot biomanufacturing facility near ADM’s corn complex in Marshall, Minnesota. The facility will utilize dextrose — a sugar similar to glucose — provided by ADM to scale Solugen's existing line of lower-carbon organic acids and develop new, innovative molecules to replace existing fossil fuel-based materials.

The project will use Solugen’s Bioforge technology, which converts plant-derived substances into essential materials that have traditionally been made from fossil fuels.

In 2021, Solugen landed one of the largest funding rounds in Houston, a $350 million Series C round led by GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund, and Scottish investment management firm Baillie Gifford. Following the round, Solugen's valuation jumped to more than $1.8 billion, giving the startup unicorn status. Solugen followed that funding round with a $200 million Series D round in November 2022, breaking the $2 billion valuation mark.

Of the 12 national winners, Michael Happe of Minnesota-based Winnegbago Industries was named the overall winner and will represent the U.S. at the World Entrepreneur Of The Year competition in June 2024.

Meanwhile, five other leaders from four Houston companies were named finalists for the national awards:

Earlier this year, EY named 10 local winners of the Entrepreneur Of The Year Gulf South awards. The award covers Central and South Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, but all the winners were from Austin or Houston. Nine of this year's regional winners came from Austin. Forty-five executives were nominated as regional finalists.

Last year, the Gulf South Region was called the Central South Region. Prior to that, Central Texas was separate from what was then known as the Gulf Coast Area, which included Houston.