INVESTOR RESOURCES
HOUSTON
PitchBook. Nearly half the funding has been routed to life science and health-related technology compa- nies, an emerging sector in Hous- ton’s innovation ecosystem. Through its $25 million HX Venture Fund of Funds, the HX organization plans to make investments that will foster digital innovation in Houston and bolster the region’s tech sector. A strong network of more than 30 incubators, accelerators, makerspac- es and coworking spaces has helped strengthen the ecosystem in recent years. These hubs of innovation have created momentum and a critical mass of support for more startups. Rice University is currently devel- oping a new innovation district in Midtown. The hub will bring the area’s entrepreneurial, corporate and academic communities togeth- er. The nucleus of the South Main Innovation District will be The Ion, a 270,000-square-foot structure that will serve as a collaborative space serving businesses at all stages of the innovation lifecycle. With Hewlett Packard recently announcing an HQ move from Silicon Valley in to Houston, this further solidifies Houston’s progress towards innovation and also take advantage of the deep bench of digital and corpo- rate talent to drive their success. Once a predominantly oil and gas focused town, today the nation’s fourth largest city is a diverse, vibrant metro filled with talented people, a dynamic quality of life and a variety of growing industries, from healthcare and digital tech to manufacturing and trade. Our 11-county region offers tremendous opportunity for compa- nies and individuals with a can-do attitude. There’s still something to be said about the good ole boy feel of Houston that will never die, but rath- er like a fine wine, will only get better with age with more diversity continu- ing to infiltrate this great city. •
The NewHouston WHY THIS MARKET CONTINUES TO BE ATTRACTIVE
by Kyle Jones, Truepoint Capital
have lived in every major city in Texas. It’s all great! But there’s
Houston is home 23 Fortune 500 company headquarters. Houston is also home to The Texas Medical Center, which has 106,000 employees, 61 institutions, thou- sands of volunteers and over 160,000 patient visits a day, is the largest life sciences destination in the world. Houston can boast that it is “where the world comes for treatment.” The Houston region is also home to over 8,200 tech-related firms, including more than 500 ven- ture-backed startups. The nonprof- it Houston Exponential (HX) was formed in 2017 to help grow the city’s digital startup ecosystem. Houston companies have received over $1.9 billion in venture capital funding across 522 deals since 2014, according to the funding database
I
just something about Houston that draws me in. After living in Austin and other cities, we finally moved back to the Houston area in Decem- ber 2011, and in the short amount of time that we were gone, I noticed a new Houston. In the 1970s, Houston was the undisputed oil capital of the world and the argument that it is still the dominator in the sector today, and through its dominance in oil and gas, Houston reaches into every nook of the global economy. Which is what lead to WalletHub calling Houston the most diverse city in the U.S. over New York City. The city is also home to a deep bench of aerospace, health care and Fortune 500 companies.
74 | think realty magazine :: january – february 2022
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