Houston Creations (start-ups)

[TowerSpotter]

A few cool things I've seen coming out of Houston lately. I'm only posting start-ups that are non oil & gas related. 

 

Electric car maker Lumen Motors probably caught me eye the most, I guess this would be the first automobile company to be founded in Houston or Texas as a whole. The car is expected to be delivering its first pre-orders in late 2017 going into early 2018. They are also planning on creating 250 jobs as of now. 

 

Lumen Motors website: http://www.lumenmotors.com/

 

 

Another start-up is creating a vest that will help you expand your perception. Neosensory will help train your brain in developing new senses in sound, infrared vision, vr gaming, stock market data, etc. 

 

Neosensory website: https://neosensory.com/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Macrofab specializes in manufacturing and assembling PCBs and electronic devices. They helped Neosensory with building their vest.

 

Macrofab's website: https://macrofab.com/work/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sanjorade]

Awesome post! The startup scene here in Houston has a lot of potential. We are working on creating a tech hub in an effort to harbor continuity, infrastructure, culture, etc. that is currently lacking. With a strong community, we'll have more awesome startups coming out of the city. Exciting times for sure.

[TowerSpotter]

6 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

Awesome post! The startup scene here in Houston has a lot of potential. We are working on creating a tech hub in an effort to harbor continuity, infrastructure, culture, etc. that is currently lacking. With a strong community, we'll have more awesome startups coming out of the city. Exciting times for sure.

 

 

Currently there are many incubators and accelerators in downtown as well as a few more that are planned. These are really going to help us diversify our economy from oil and gas. Hopefully though, these companies do decide to stay in Houston. 

 

[Sanjorade]

8 hours ago, TowerSpotter said:

 

 

Currently there are many incubators and accelerators in downtown as well as a few more that are planned. These are really going to help us diversify our economy from oil and gas. Hopefully though, these companies do decide to stay in Houston. 

 

That's the biggest issue. Keeping them in Houston. Creating a tech district will be key to this.

[TowerSpotter]

On 4/9/2017 at 9:37 AM, Sanjorade said:

That's the biggest issue. Keeping them in Houston. Creating a tech district will be key to this.

 

Station Houston, one of the city accelerators and incubators, are working on creating a tech district. 

 

Houston Chronicle :

 

Quote

"I want to build a tech district here in Houston, like the Texas Medical Center for medicine." - John Reale, Station co-founder & CEO. Stay tuned in the coming months for a release of recommendations from the Mayor's Technology Task Force on how we plan to make this vision a reality!

 

 

[TowerSpotter]

Here is another start-up that recently made headlines, Axiom Space is to planning to build the world's first commercial space station. 

 

Axiom Space website: 

https://www.axiomspace.com/

 





 



 

 

 

Quote

Axiom Space, a Houston-based commercial space startup, will build the world’s first, privately-funded commercial space station --- an incredibly economical, for-profit $1.5 billion replacement for the $100 billion International Space Station (ISS) which ceases operation in 2024.

 

The plan is for Axiom to initially hitch a module to the ISS before becoming a stand-alone station itself that will play host to a seven member crew of both professional astronauts, researchers and space tourists as well as manufacturing and research entities.

 

Axiom hopes to reduce the existing ISS’ massive construction costs by using as much off the shelf, plug and play space architecture and equipment as possible.

 

The rest of the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2017/04/11/axiom-aims-to-build-worlds-first-commercial-space-station/#48d0d05f1d80

[Sanjorade]

21 minutes ago, TowerSpotter said:

 

Station Houston, one of the city accelerators and incubators, are working on creating a tech district downtown. 

 

 

There are a few players in the scene right now. Downtown will definitely be part of the district.

[skwatra]

33 minutes ago, TowerSpotter said:

Here is another start-up that recently made headlines, Axiom Space is to planning to build the world's first commercial space station.

 

Mike Suffredini, former Program Manager of the ISS, left NASA to be the President of Axiom Space. He has a lot of detailed knowledge and knows ISS inside and out - should be interesting.

[TowerSpotter]

11 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

There are a few players in the scene right now. Downtown will definitely be part of the district.

 

I strongly belive so, I think Downtown will be the main tech district considering accelerators are popping up all over downtown. Wework, HTC (Houston Technology Center), Station Houston, Surge Shack, etc.

 

10 hours ago, skwatra said:

 

Mike Suffredini, former Program Manager of the ISS, left NASA to be the President of Axiom Space. He has a lot of detailed knowledge and knows ISS inside and out - should be interesting.

 

Thats good to know, hopefully his experience brings him a lot of success. 

[pablog]

Hopefully this "Tech District" is located in the south of downtown! I'd like to see that area developed into something great. With the removal of pierce elevated, or even with the Pierce SkyPark (whatever it is called), i think it would be a great area to build a district on. 

[Subdude]

Great post.  It seems to me that Houston should be perfect for fostering start-ups.  I would think there would be a lot of potential in the medical services field.  

[TowerSpotter]

On 4/13/2017 at 8:08 AM, Subdude said:

Great post.  It seems to me that Houston should be perfect for fostering start-ups.  I would think there would be a lot of potential in the medical services field.  

 

True, theres quite a few start-ups in the medical field popping up from the Rice University (owlspark) to the UH (redlabs) and to TMCX. I could also see start-ups in the space industry as the Houston Technology Center has another office near Nasa, not sure if it is aimed for that specific industry but if so this would do us great as it will renew our dying space scene.  

 

[TowerSpotter]

Houston start-up running for a medical marijuana license, would be the first in the state to dispense medical marijuana

 

 

Full Article:

Houston Chronicle

 

Quote

A joint venture involving a Texas Medical Center-based startup and a Houston company that specializes in indoor vertical farming is bidding for one of the first licenses to dispense medical marijuana in the state.

 

Approval would make a business group with strong local ties a pioneer in the production of low-THC cannabis under a program that was authorized by the Texas Legislature two years ago but has yet to launch. Though significantly smaller in scope than legalization statutes in other states, the initiative would at least give Texas a toehold in what is expected to be a $20 billion industry within the next three years.

 

The group led by Houston-based engineering and procurement firm Indoor Harvest is among 43 statewide seeking a license to produce a specific strain of cannabis for sale to patients of intractable epilepsy who have a doctor's prescription. The Department of Public Safety has until Sunday to grant provisional approval for dispensary licenses.

 

In preparation, Indoor Harvest is planning to acquire Alamo CBD, a San Antonio company that actually applied for the state license in March.

 

[TowerSpotter]

Houston is poised to become a tech city

 

 

http://www.chron.com/business/technology/article/Business-leaders-plans-to-boost-tech-starts-to-11147482.php

 

Quote

Houston's business leaders have nailed down their plan amp up the city's entrepreneurial ecosystem, with the launch of a "strategy office" aimed at boosting venture capital investment and connecting young businesses with established industries that might need the technologies they develop.

 

The office will be led by John Nordby, vice president for innovation at the Greater Houston Partnership, and will be charged with executing a 41-page plan that includes changes to regulations, the establishment of a "tech district" in a yet-to-be-determined neighborhood, and the recruitment of an office of a large technology firm (such as Apple or Google). 

 

The effort comes after a year or so of discussions around why Houston,  a center of corporate research and development, has fallen short on measures of startup activity and "disruptive" innovation that can upend entire industries, as Uber has done with taxi cabs or Dropbox  with web storage. 

 

That kind of business culture requires talent, money, customers, and a mechanism for bringing them together. Houston's challenge has been that those ingredients have been distributed across a vast landscape, often locked inside large companies. This new office's mission will be to shake them loose.

 

The plan was written on a pro-bono basis by the consulting firm Accenture, with participation from a city task force headed by City Council member Amanda Edwards, local universities, large energy companies the Houston Technology Center, the Texas Medical Center, and Station Houston, a one-year-old startup incubator.

 

On the agenda: A marketing campaign with conferences and advertising to highlight Houston's innovative capacity, a "founder visa" program that will help foreign tech workers come and stay here, and city policies that pave the way for innovative businesses, such as regulations for autonomous cars. 

 

The plan also includes granting tax abatements for businesses that locate in a certain neighborhood designated for tech startups, activating local rich people to invest in young firms, and raising a $100 million fund to be overseen by professional managers.

 

Some of those tasks, especially any regulatory changes and tax breaks, will require action by the city government. Although Mayor Sylvester Turner expressed support for the general ideas in his State of the City address a few weeks ago, they remain ideas. 

 

"The mayor has not committed to anything specifically," says Gina Luna, a former head of JPMorgan Chase's Houston Office who led the Partnership's task force. "There's no timeline for any of this yet." 

 

Venture capitalist Blair Garrou, managing director of the Houston-based Mercury Fund, will chair the strategy office's board of directors. 

 

The Houston plan also focuses on a few key sectors: Cybersecurity, robotics, and the "industrial internet of things," which refers to machines that can be connected wirelessly, such as a smartphone-controlled thermostat. 

 

The Strategy Office is modeled on Chicago's ChicagoNext, which delegates projects to major players like universities and big businesses and makes sure everything is coordinated and on schedule. Members of the city task force that helped draw up the plan visited Chicago, which over the past several years has created a hub for young tech businesses called 1871.

 

John Reale, co-founder of Station Houston, says those are the types of technologies that are most needed by Houston's biggest industries: Health care, energy, aerospace, manufacturing, and logistics. 

 

"All of them have this underpinning layer of data science," Reale says. "That's really the common core here." 

 

Detailed plan:

 

https://www.scribd.com/document/348448117/Accenture-Innovation-in-Houston-Final-Report-VF3

[TowerSpotter]

 

Alcove Group is developing a laptop workstation for today's digital workers. 

 

Alcove Website: https://www.getalcove.com/#incontext 




 

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/588bb23bbf629a6bec7c3290/t/5914c8da3e00be9632fb6892/1494534391800/?format=1000w

 
 

Quote

HOUSTON, June 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcove Group is preparing to launch a Kickstarter Campaign for their first product, a first-of-its-kind laptop case that unfolds into a sleek private workstation with backlight and patent-pending noise-directing side panels. Alcove solves the visual and noise distractions so many professionals are faced with when working in open spaces.

 

Yared Akalou and Sergio Aleman founded Alcove in 2017, and their mission is simple: to bring remote and shared-space workers into the future with a workstation that puts them instantly "in the zone," whenever and wherever they do their work. The idea for Alcove came to Akalou through years of dedicated field study and research on how people work today.  "Today's talent need a workspace as flexible as they are and Alcove affords more privacy whenever it is time to focus." Akalou and Aleman capitalized on their respective backgrounds in design to uniquely solve for these challenges to bring Alcove to life.

 

"Work today," says Akalou, "is shifting from full-time employment (tenured based) to short, project based stints. Naturally, that means you'll likely be working in different locations. That's where Alcove can move with you, where work and life takes you."

 

Alcove is much more than a workstation for your laptop. Alcove's patent-pending privacy panels and optional backlight, which is rechargeable, also support activities such as reading and writing in low lighting conditions.

 

Alcove will launch with a Kickstarter campaign this summer.

 

About Alcove Group

 

Houston-based startup Alcove Group, LLC. is developing the first laptop case that unfolds into a dedicated mobile workstation. The patent-pending solution includes privacy panels and an optional rechargeable backlight with a dimmer switch to support focused work and intimate collaborations.

 

http://news.sys-con.com/node/4102267

 

 
 

[TowerSpotter]

Lumen Motors Update:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[UtterlyUrban]

Are car seating positions normally prototyped with plywood?  

 

Their website indicates that they will be delivering cars to pre-order customers tentatively in "late 2018 or early 2019" for those who plunk down a $15k deposit.

 

based on this post, , should one infer that they are on-track to meet that timeline or not?  

 

 

 

 

[TowerSpotter]

Houston will be launching its own version of SXSW in 3 days, its called THIS. (The Houston Innovation Summit) Hopefully this brings a lot of money into the city like SXSW does for Austin and attracts other companies. 

 

http://thehoustoninnovationsummit.com/?utm_content=61838346&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

 

from the link above

 

Quote

This October 21-28, Houston's tech community unites to bring you THIS: The Houston Innovation Summit. Launched as an annual event for Houston innovators to connect, ideate, create and celebrate together, #THIS17 takes a new spin...

Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath amplified many of Houston's most complex problems. To surface challenges and identify how we can turn them into opportunities for insight, innovation and impact, #THIS17 invites you to participate in discussions, design-thinking sessions, workshops and social events to ignite the problem-solving potential of Houston's innovation ecosystem for long-term recovery.

 

 

[harementire]

Wow! The ideas here are way too cool! 

[TowerSpotter]

 

Start-up Orion Span Is planning a Luxury Hotel in space by 2021

 

Website: https://www.orionspan.com/aurora-station 

 

 

 

https://www.space.com/40262-aurora-station-space-hotel-vr-wifi-weightlessness.html

 

Quote

Ever dreamed of vacationing in space? Aurora Station, a luxury space hotel, promises virtual reality and Wi-Fi for travelers in low Earth orbit — but we'll have to wait and see if the station really flies.

 

A space technology startup called Orion Span recently announced plans for its Aurora Station, expecting to launch in 2021 and begin hosting tourists by 2022. Visitors aboard Aurora Station would be able to enjoy Wi-Fi, weightlessness, a virtual reality experience on the holodeck and an authentic astronaut experience.