Houston Tech News - 08/20/2020

AUGUST 20, 2020

Welcome to this week’s issue of Houston Tech News. There are no deal deep dives this week as we are working on a broader set of them looking at a number of deals from the last quarter that will be released next week. Enjoy the rest of the newsletter and hope y’all are staying safe out there. 

BYTES

• Ocean Power Tech a company providing ocean/wave power solutions to offshore industries has opened an office in Houston to enhance sales and regional business development.
• The Ion Innovation Hub in Houston (scheduled to open in 2021) has signed Chevron Technology ventures as the first tenant for its campus. Full press release here.
• Nanotech, Inc. has been selected as the first participant in the newly formed incubator Halliburton Labs as part of their first batch for providing cleaner energy solutions. 
• NCS is partnering with local schools to provide cameras and thermal imaging to help detect COVID. More info.
• Reliant and Deshaun Watson’s foundation along with Comp-U-Dopt to provide 500 computers to children in need.

DEALS

• Padsplit raises $10 million. The company uses an AirBnB model to make housing more affordable for low-income workers. The company is based in Atlanta but is using the additional capital to expand into the Houston area.
• Retina-AI a Houston based company, raised $5.2 million for their technology that uses AI to look at the retina and determine and diagnose diseases such as diabetic retinopathy. 

EVENTS

• August 21 - HTX Techlist Live Office Hours Event
• August 24-28 - Houston Climate Week - not necessarily tech-related but will have a number of tech segments.
• September 15-17 - Energy Tech Venture Forum Presented By Rice University
• September 17-18 - Oil and Gas Blockchain Forum

JOBS

• Business Operations Analyst @ Vroom
• Sales Strategy & Operations Leader, Energy BU @ Amazon
• Business Development/Growth Manager @ Veryable

As always if there is a specific company you want us to look at or have anything to reach out for please feel free to let us know at [email protected]