Alongside a capital raise and striking a deal for distribution in Asia and the Middle East, technology firm Fluence Analytics quietly moved its headquarters from New Orleans to Stafford earlier this month.
Fluence Analytics is an industrial technology firm developing products for manufacturers testing and analyzing polymers and material properties. Founded in 2015, Fluence was spun out of Tulane University in New Orleans. Alex Reed, CEO of Fluence, said the company works with many energy and petrochemical clients, making the Houston market a good fit for its headquarters.
The technology firm was also interested in the skilled workforce available in the Houston market, Reed said. Fluence is looking to grow its team with talent in engineering, software development, sensor hardware, sales and business development roles.
"There are very, very good people in the Houston area with a lot of diverse experience — oil and gas, petrochemicals, all the service companies, a lot of the contractors and fab shops that we would work with," Reed said. "Infrastructure is huge, and if you look at Houston, it's got everything you need."
Fluence is operating out of approximately 6,000 square feet of space at 12875 Capricorn St. in Stafford, which houses mainly engineering operations, as well as some light product prototyping, Reed said. The company maintains a presence in New Orleans, where employees are mainly focused on research and development efforts. Fluence has a core team of 20 employees.
Fluence unveiled a new distribution partnership with Tokyo, Japan-based Yokogawa Electric Corp., which will give Yokogawa exclusive rights to distribute Fluence's technology to customers in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. The agreement covers Fluence's ACOMP product — which stands for Automatic Continuous Online Monitoring of Polymerization Reactions. The device can generate data streams in real time on polymer properties and material reactions to give clients improved quality and greater yields, Fluence said.
"This is a completely new dataset that our customers can now leverage that specifically tells them exactly what they're making while they're making it," Reed said. "Whereas now, a lot of them have to go offline, test in a lab — it takes a lot of time and effort to see where you're at in the process on the quality side."
Fluence's new headquarters is not far from Yokogawa's North American headquarters, Sugar Land-based Yokogawa Corp. of America.
Fluence also recently raised a $7.5 million financing round. Yokogawa Electric participated in the $7.5 million round, and other investors included Energy Innovation Capital, JSR Corp. and Diamond Edge Ventures, the U.S. venture capital arm for Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. Using proceeds from the fundraising round, Fluence will design and produce its next-generation ACOMP products and build out its headcount.
Maury Bronstein and John S. Wall Jr. with Houston-based 1912 Ventures LLC served as brokers to Fluence Analytics during its local real estate search.
