Editor’s observe:One other week has come and gone, and it is time to spherical up the highest headlines from the previous few days. Trending Houston tech and startup information on InnovationMap included overheard recommendation from corporates to startups, a rising hub for innovation at UH, and extra.
College of Houston plans to construct new central campus innovation hub
The College of Houston will assemble a brand new hub for innovation on its primary campus. The constructing is deliberate to be adjoining to the M.D. Anderson Library. Photograph by way of uh.edu
Over a yr in the past, the College of Houston bought the greenlight from the state of Texas to create a central hub for innovation on campus, Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vp of power and innovation on the College of Houston, tells InnovationMap.
“We requested the state two years in the past for appropriations to create an innovation hub on the College of Houston,” Krishnamoorti says on this week’s episode of the Houston Innovators Podcast. “We at the moment are within the course of of making an innovation hub central to the campus on the College of Houston.”
Whereas the mission continues to be in its early levels, the college has revealed some particulars on the constructing, which is slated to open in 2025 subsequent to the M.D. Anderson Library on UH’s primary campus. Will probably be round 70,000 sq. ft and can home a makerspace, the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Heart for Entrepreneurship, the Vitality Transition Institute, innovation applications, and Presidential Frontier School labs and workplaces. Learn extra.
Overheard: What Houston corporates are searching for from startups
At its annual Activation Pageant, the Ion hosted a dialog concerning the relationship between corporates and startups. Photograph courtesy of Shannon O’Hara/the Ion
Tons of of innovators from Houston and past flocked to the Ion’s annual Activation Pageant, and one of many matters mentioned on the collection of programming was the connection between corporates and startups.
One in every of Houston’s factors of delight is having the third most Fortune 500 firms headquartered right here, however how can the town’s innovation ecosystem make the most of that market? And, on the opposite aspect of it, how can corporates benefit from Houston innovators?
At a panel on Might 17 entitled “Company-Startup Partnerships: Methods to Construct Them, Maintain Them, and How They’re Key to Quick-Monitoring Innovation and Progress,” three company leaders defined how they navigate relationships with startups and the way cultivating these alternatives is vital to the way forward for enterprise. Learn extra.
Houston financial institution opens new innovation hub inside its location in The Woodlands
The brand new house permits for Amegy Financial institution staff in addition to North Houston innovators to work collaboratively. Photograph by way of Amegy Financial institution
Amegy Financial institution renovated it banking heart in The Woodlands so as to add a hub for innovation, know-how, and entrepreneurship.
The workplace, situated at 4576 Analysis Forest Dr., now homes a refurbished house from The Cannon, a co-working and entrepreneurship hub with areas throughout Houston. The Cannon creates and manages areas the place startup founders, enterprise house owners, buyers, and extra can meet on frequent floor to collaborate on their entrepreneurial endeavors.
“Amegy Financial institution has served the wants of enterprise house owners and households throughout Houston for over 30 years,” Amegy Financial institution-Houston President Dave Stevenson says in a information launch. “The banking heart’s refreshed design, with The Cannon onsite, will revolutionize North Houston’s entry to localized monetary sources tailor-made for entrepreneurs and small-to-mid-size companies.”Learn extra.
How this Houston-based studio is tackling billion-dollar issues with inside innovation
Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio chief, shares how her workforce is advancing software program options whereas navigating hype cycles and fixing billion-dollar-problems. Photograph courtesy of KPMG
In 2021, KPMG, a New York-based world audit, accounting, and advisory service supplier, shaped a brand new entity to play within the innovation house. The Houston-based workforce finds modern software program that profit KPMG’s purchasers throughout industries.
“We’re actually targeted on transformative companies that we will provide our purchasers within the subsequent three to 5 years to unravel pretty giant issues,” Anu Puvvada, KPMG Studio chief, tells InnovationMap.
Now, virtually two years later, KPMG Studio has spun out its first firm, AI-based safety startup Skull, which has raised $7 million in a seed spherical led by SYN Ventures with assist from KPMG.
Established to advance inside innovation, KPMG Studio’s applied sciences do not all the time get spun out into startups like Skull, however with assist of the workforce, the early-stage concepts obtain steerage from the corporate’s sources with the potential to be rolled into KPMG’s suite of companies for its purchasers. Learn extra.
Houston startup with revolutionary battery know-how opens new labs
TexPower’s founders — Board Chairman Arumugam Manthiram, CTO Wangda Li, and CEO Evan Erickson, respectively — celebrated the opening of the corporate’s new lab house. Photograph courtesy of TexPower
A Houston startup based off analysis out of a Texas college has reduce the ribbon on its new lab house.
TexPower EV Applied sciences Inc. celebrated the opening of its 6,000-square-foot laboratory and three-ton-per-year pilot manufacturing line at a ribbon-cutting occasion final week. The Northwest Houston web site is situated at 6935 Brittmoore Rd.
The brand new house will assist the corporate additional commercialize its cobalt-free lithium-ion cathode, lithium nickel manganese aluminum oxide (NMA). The know-how is sport altering for the electrification of the USA, together with the fast adoption of electrical autos.
Presently, the nation is experiencing a provide chain disaster, says Evan Erickson, co-founder and CEO of the corporate, on the occasion. Many of the world’s cobalt, a cloth historically utilized in lithium-ion cathodes, is sourced primarily from the Congo and refinement is generally managed by China, he explains.
For these causes, Cathodes are the costliest part of lithium-ion batteries. However TexPower has a novel know-how to unravel this provide chain subject, and now with its new labs, is one step nearer to commercialization of its supplies. Learn extra.
