| Date | Title | Description |
| 06.08.2026 | U.S. News declares Houston hospital No. 1 in Texas for the 15th year | Houston Methodist Hospital and over a dozen more Houston-area hospitals have earned bragging rights in U.S. News & World Report's newly released rankings of the Best Hospitals for 2026-2027.
Every year, U.S. News annually evaluates near... |
| 05.08.2026 | Who are Houston's top innovators? Nominate now for 2026 Houston Innovation Awards | Calling all Houston innovators: The 2026 Houston Innovation Awards, presented by InnovationMap, return this fall to celebrate the best and brightest in the Houston innovation ecosystem right now.
We're asking you to nominate Houston's top i... |
| 04.08.2026 | Rice lands $19 million grant to build AI-driven quantum materials lab | Rice University has received a $19.9 million award from the National Science Foundation to increase the production of quantum and electronic materials by using a combination of artificial intelligence, cloud-based labs and robotics.
The fou... |
| 31.07.2026 | 2 Houston companies tapped to build robots for Mars & more innovation news | Editor's note: The biggest innovation headlines in July include robots for Mars, the launch of the Texas Stock Exchange, and cancer research funding. Below are the five most-read InnovationMap articles published July 15-31, 2026:
1. Houston... |
| 30.07.2026 | Venus Aerospace adds government, C-suite leaders following $91M raise | Fresh off its $91 million Series B, Houston-based Venus Aerospace has made several key additions and promotions to its leadership team.
The company says its expanded team will help it deploy its high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine... |
| 17.07.2026 | European spacecraft developer expands to Houston with U.S. business, new lab | European aerospace manufacturer The Exploration Company has established its first U.S. entity and named Space City as its headquarters.
The company announced earlier this month that it has launched TEC Federal to support U.S. government cus... |
| 17.07.2026 | Exciting XSpace expansion plans + more top Houston innovation headlines | Editor's note: The top Houston innovation headlines for the first half of July include XSpace's expansion and KBR's C-suite hires. Here is a recap of the five most-read InnovationMap stories published July 1-15, 2026:
1. XSpace plans $250M ... |
| 11.07.2026 | Venus Aerospace Closes $91M to Scale Detonation Engine Production | Venus Aerospace has secured $91 million in Series B funding led by Houston-based venture capital firm Mercury Fund, with additional backing from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Starboard Star Venture Capital, Green Sands Equity, and ... |
| 10.07.2026 | XSpace plans $250M industrial condo expansion with RAFA Racing Club | Houston-based XSpace Group has teamed up with two other Houston companies, RAFA Racing Club and Maximo Capital, to develop five industrial condo projects that pair flex space and high-end car storage space with a members-only clubhouse for ... |
| 10.07.2026 | Walmart expands drone delivery service to 8 new Houston-area stores | More Walmart delivery drones are now buzzing around Houston-area skies.
In January, Walmart launched its drone delivery service in partnership with Wing at five locations in the Houston area. The retail giant just added eight more stores to... |
| 09.07.2026 | Texas Forges Future: Innovation Hub Drives Space, Tech, and Health Advancements | Texas leads a new era of innovation. Houston's tech sector thrives. Space companies like Intuitive Machines secure major NASA contracts for lunar exploration. Venus Aerospace propels hypersonic engine development. UT Austin unveils wearable... |
| 09.07.2026 | Venture capital & startup funding roundup, July 9, 2026: Sequoia, Khosla Ventures, Y Combinator, A16Z, and Accel | It’s Thursday, July 9, 2026, and today’s dealmaking paints a clear picture: venture capital is pouring into AI infrastructure and frontier technologies, while strategic sectors like clean energy, biotech and national security quietly attrac... |
| 09.07.2026 | Venus Aerospace Raises $91 Million Series B To Mature Flight-Proven RDRE Propulsion Systems | Venus Aerospace announced the close of a $91 million Series B financing round to scale development and production of its rotating detonation rocket engine technology. The round was led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Lockheed Marti... |
| 08.07.2026 | Venture Capital & Startup Funding Roundup, July 8, 2026 | It’s Wednesday, July 7, 2026. The last 16 hours brought a surge of capital into frontier tech: AI infrastructure, deep energy, and defense systems. Investors funneled mega-rounds into enterprise AI and chip startups (for example, Palo Alto’... |
| 08.07.2026 | Venus Aerospace closes $91M funding round to scale hypersonic engine | Houston-based Venus Aerospace has closed a $91 million Series B round and plans to scale the production of its hypersonic engine.
The round was led by Houston-based Mercury Fund with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6,... |
| 08.07.2026 | Venus Aerospace Raises $91M in Series B Funding | Venus Aerospace, a Houston, TX-based rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) technology company, raised $91M in Series B funding.
The round was led by Mercury Fund, with participation from Lockheed Martin Ventures, MESH, PEAK6, Draper Asso... |
| 07.07.2026 | UT team develops wearable technology for atmospheric water harvesting | Engineers at the University of Texas at Austin have developed a prototype jacket that harvests clean drinking water directly from the atmosphere, and it works even in the driest desert conditions.
The research, published in Science Advances... |
| 07.07.2026 | Intuitive Machines lands $148M as part of NASA Moon Base funding | Houston-based Intuitive Machines has been awarded $148.3 million to deliver its Nova-C lander to the moon by 2028. The funding is part of $600 million that NASA recently awarded to three companies as part of the agency’s Moon Base Program.
... |
| 29.06.2026 | Houston Forges Future: Medical Advances, Tech Dominance, Economic Power | Houston drives progress with massive healthcare investments and tech advancements. Houston Methodist secures $110M for neurological, neuroscience, and women's health research, funding a new 26-story tower. Innovative startups, cleantech fir... |
| 26.06.2026 | Houston cleantech, space startups named to World Economic Forum cohort | Two Houston-based startups have been selected to join the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers community.
The two-year program aims to help mission-driven, early-stage start-ups scale their innovations through multi-stakeholder initia... |
| 17.11.2025 | LEAP 71 and Farsoon Bring AI + Metal AM to Hypersonic Precooler Targeting Single-Stage-to-Orbit | Dubai-based engineering company LEAP 71 and Chinese 3D printer manufacturer Farsoon Technologies have introduced an AI-designed, metal additively manufactured hypersonic precooler — a demonstrator aimed at bringing winged, air-breathing spa... |
| 23.10.2025 | Venus Aerospace Receives Strategic Investment From Lockheed Martin | Venus Aerospace, a Houston, TX-based next-generation rocket engine propulsion startup, received a strategic investment from Lockheed Martin through their investment arm, Lockheed Martin Ventures.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
Fo... |
| 22.10.2025 | Venus Aerospace secures Lockheed's venture backing | Venus Aerospace, a five-year-old developer of rocket engine propulsion technologies, has secured an investment from Lockheed Martin’s venture capital arm with an eye toward further scaling its production of the systems.
Venus’ flagship offe... |
| 01.08.2025 | 11 can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for August | Editor's note: The tech event scene is heating up in August. From insightful talks to a young professionals summit, here's what not to miss and how to register. Please note: this article may be updated to include additional event listings.A... |
| 17.04.2025 | NASA-Backed 3D Printed Nozzle Powers Venus Aerospace Hypersonic Engine | Venus Aerospace, a Texas-based hypersonic propulsion company, will incorporate a nozzle developed under a NASA Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) award into its next ground-based engine demonstration. The component, produced using la... |
| 28.11.2024 | NASA on AM enabled Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine: 3D Printing Industry Awards 2024 | Thomas Teasley, a liquid propulsion engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), explains how additive manufacturing is a key component in developing the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), a transformative propulsion syste... |
| 14.11.2024 | 2024 Houston Innovation Awards winners named at annual event | Houston innovators — the moment you've been waiting for. The winners of the 2024 Houston Innovation Awards were named at the annual event.
The Houston Innovation Awards honored over 40 finalists across categories, naming the 12 winners and ... |
| 05.11.2024 | Houston's Innovation Landscape: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Opportunities | Houston is a city of dreams and determination. It’s a melting pot of innovation, where entrepreneurs are forging paths in uncharted territories. The recent Houston Innovation Awards highlighted this spirit, showcasing the wisdom of finalist... |
| 04.11.2024 | Houston joins newly launched 4-city, space-focused network | Four cities from around the world have teamed up on a mission to grow aeronautics, space, and astronomy.
The Space Cities Network launched last month at the International Congress and Convention Association Congress in Abu Dhabi. The first ... |
| 22.10.2024 | Houston's Innovation Surge: A Glimpse into the Future | Houston is buzzing. The city is a cauldron of innovation, bubbling with ideas and energy. The upcoming Houston Innovation Awards is a testament to this vibrant ecosystem. Scheduled for November 14, the event will spotlight over 50 finalists... |
| 16.10.2024 | Podcast: The 2024 who's who of Houston innovation | The Houston Innovation Awards is less than a month away, and the finalists have just been named. In honor of the recent announcement, this week's Houston Innovators Podcast takes a look at the finalists.
But with six years of InnovationMap ... |
| 22.04.2024 | Houston Spaceport takes off with second phase of development | Since the Houston Spaceport secured the 10th FAA-Licensed commercial spaceport designation in 2015, the development's tenants have gone on to secure billions in NASA contracts. Now, the Houston Spaceport is on to its next phase of growth.
“... |
| 22.04.2024 | New report calls for Houston health care community to take action amid climate change | A new report underscores an “urgent need” for health care systems in the Houston area to combat climate change and avoid an environmental “code blue.”
“By adopting collaborative strategies and leveraging technological innovations, health ca... |
| 19.03.2024 | University of Houston receives funding to support diverse cardiovascular researchers | University of Houston professors have received a nearly $800,000 grant to create a new summer program that will support diverse future researchers.
The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provided $792,900 in grant funding to Bradley ... |
| 19.03.2024 | Houston space tech startup reports milestone achievement in partnership with federal agency | A Houston tech company working on an engine to enable hypersonic flights has reported its latest milestone.
Venus Aerospace announced that it's successfully ran the first long-duration engine test of their Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine ... |
| 25.06.2023 | A European jet startup wants to fly people from New York to London in 90 minutes using a hypersonic jet. See what the plane could look like. | A rendering of a prototype of the Destinus L hypersonic jet. Destinus
European startup Destinus is designing a series of ultra-speedy aircraft capable of reaching Mach 5.
Liquid hydrogen combined with jet and rocket engines will allow the p... |
| 22.06.2023 | A Small Ohio Startup Is Testing Something Big: A Small Hypersonic Engine | Velontra recently tested its hypersonic turbo-ramjet engine for the first time in Purdue ... [+] University's Zucrow Laboratories in a High Pressure Combustion Lab.Velontra |
| 21.06.2023 | Houston maintains a leader in annual life science report | Houston is a rising star when it comes to developing homegrown talent in life sciences research.
From 2016 to 2021, the Houston area saw the third largest jump in students earning degrees in biology and biomedicine among 25 major life scien... |
| 21.06.2023 | Life science investment firm announces expansion into Houston | A Chicago-based life science investment firm has announced its expansion into Houston.
Portal Innovations released the news today that it will move into 30,000 square feet of lab and office space in Texas Medical Center's new Helix Park compl... |
| 21.06.2023 | Longtime innovator shares why she's optimistic about Houston's future as a hub for startups, tech | As she describes, Emily Keeton's strength and her curse is that she lacks patience. For this reason, her career, launched originally in investment banking, has taken her from the startup world to media and beyond.
"I'm a person of acti... |
| 20.06.2023 | Web3 technology has the potential to bring communities together, say Houston innovators | Houston innovators dispelled some of the misconceptions about the decentralized web and Web3 technology at a recent panel, which highlighted the technology’s ability to bring communities together.
DivInc, a Texas-based accelerator focused o... |
| 20.06.2023 | Rice Alliance names 15 startups to its cleantech accelerator | A clean energy program has announced its third cohort and named the 15 startups that were accepted into to the accelerator.
The Rice Alliance's Clean Energy Accelerator revealed its 2023 cohort that will be in the 10-week program that kicks... |
| 16.06.2023 | 5 most popular innovation stories in Houston this week | Editor's note:Another week has come and gone, and it's time to round up the top headlines from the past few days. Trending Houston tech and startup news on InnovationMap included a new autonomous truck route, three Houston innovators to kno... |
| 15.06.2023 | Venus Aerospace Receives Investment from Airbus Ventures | Venus Aerospace RDRE Test, Spaceport Houston
Venus Aerospace, a Houston, TX-based hypersonic startup enabling cost-effective one-hour global transport, received an investment from Airbus Ventures.
The amount of the deal was not disclosed.
L... |
| 14.06.2023 | Houston startup with hypersonic engine tech adds new investor | A Houston-based company that's developing an engine that'll enable one-hour global transportation has announced its latest investor.
Venus Aerospace released the news that Silicon Valley venture capital firm, Airbus Ventures, has joined its... |
| 26.05.2023 | This Passenger Plane Aims to Shatter the Sound Barrier in Record Time | John Lopez, Tech Times 26 May 2023, 02:05 pm
Supersonic airplanes have always captivated the imagination, but the notion of an aircraft soaring at an astonishing nine times the speed of sound has remained confined to science fiction.
Texas-... |
| 28.03.2023 | Destinus partners with the Spanish government, flying faster towards its dream of speedy long distance aviation | This month Swiss startup Destinus gets closer to its aim to make long-distance flights fast. It has a highly ambitious plan for hypersonic green hydrogen-fueled aircraft to fly us from Sydney to Frankfurt in 4 hours and 15 minutes instead o... |
| 10.06.2022 | Proposed Hypersonic Passenger Plane Will Travel to the Edge of Space at Mach 9 | Supersonic travel hasn’t been a reality for even the most well-off individuals since the Concorde was retired almost 20 years ago, but a company called Venus Aerospace wants to make super-fast passenger planes a reality again. Its proposed ... |
| 09.06.2022 | Venus Aerospace wants to fly you from LA to Tokyo in an hour | If time is of the essence, then the idea of traveling to a future vacation spot aboard Venus Aerospace’s hypersonic plane may appeal.
The Houston, Texas-based company this week shared renderings of a hypersonic passenger plane called Starga... |
| 07.04.2022 | A Houston Hypersonic Transport Startup Promises Passenger Flights From L.A. To Tokyo In An Hour | An aeroplane flying high across a blue sky producing a striking contrail cloud behind it over ... [+] Folkestone, United Kingdom. photo by Andrew Aitchison / In pictures via Getty Images) In Pictures via Getty Images |
| 07.04.2022 | A-Rod-backed sports betting app Mojo wants to let you bet on athletes like stocks | This is the web version of Term Sheet, a daily newsletter on the biggest deals and dealmakers. Sign up to get it delivered free to your inbox.
Good morning, Term Sheeters. Jackson Fordyce here, filling in for Jessica.
Paid Content How North... |
| 06.04.2022 | Venus Aerospace raises $20M | Venus Aerospace has raised a $20 million Series A led by Prime Movers Lab. The Houston-based startup is developing a zero-carbon emission hypersonic aircraft that will enable one-hour global travel.
View round |
| 05.04.2022 | Venus Aerospace Raises $20M In Series A Funding | Venus Aerospace team at the Houston Spaceport
Venus Aerospace, a Houston, TX-based startup developing hypersonic aircraft, raised $20M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Prime Movers Lab with participation from Draper Associates, Boo... |
| 05.04.2022 | Venus Aerospace Inks $20M Series A Round |
HOUSTON, TX, Venus Aerospace, a startup developing hypersonic aircraft, raised a $20 million Series A funding round.
>> Click here for more funding data on Venus Aerospace
>> To export Venus Aerospace funding data to PDF and... |
| 16.10.2021 | Los Angeles to Tokyo in an hour – This Texas startup is building the world’s fastest hypersonic plane that could travel at over 9,000 miles per hour | This week, Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin and William Shatner made history after the 90-year-old Canadian actor became the world’s oldest astronaut to go to space. Shatner and three others went to the edge of space in a tourist space... |
| 29.05.2021 | Los Angeles to Tokyo in an hour – a Texas startup is building a Mach 12 hypersonic plane that could dramatically reduce travel times | Venus Aerospace, a Houston startup, said its working on a Mach 12 hypersonic aircraft.
Travel between Los Angeles and Tokyo could take a hour, the company said.
Prime Movers Lab led Venus Aerospace’s $3 million seed funding round in March.
... |
| 29.05.2021 | Space startup Venus Aerospace promises Los Angeles to Tokyo in one hour with hypersonic flight that travels at over 9,000 mph | In March, we wrote about Antimatter rocket, a future spacecraft that could reach the speed of 72 million miles per hour and potentially makes future interstellar travel a reality. But for some of us who have no desire to visit Mars or Pluto... |
| 05.03.2021 | Venus Aerospace Closes $3M Seed Funding | Venus Aerospace, a Houston, MA-based high-speed transportation startup, closed a $3m seed funding round.
The round was led by Prime Movers Lab with participation from Draper Associates, Boost VC, Saturn Five and X-Factor Ventures. In conjun... |
| 03.03.2021 | Venus Aerospace Closes On $3 Million In Seed Funding | |
| - | Venus Aerospace | “A generational improvement in rocket engine technology, Venus Aerospace’s RDRE & VDR deliver unmatched efficiency, scalability, and performance for defense, space, and commercial high-speed flight.” |
| - | ETH Zurich Ignites Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine | A student team from ETH Zurich‘s Academic Space Initiative Switzerland (ARIS) has successfully ignited a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) using liquid propellants, recording stable detonation waves during a night test at Dübendorf A... |
| - | Venus Aerospace | “How much would you pay to get to the other side of the world in comfort in an hour? Venus Aerospace is the future of Hypersonic Transportation.” |
| - | Meet 5 hypersonic plane startups pulling in millions from VCs looking for the future of aviation and space travel | Hermeus' Quarterhorse is a remotely-piloted prototype hypersonic aircraft, scheduled to take its first flight in 2023. Hermeus This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.
A crop of st... |
| - | See 7 supersonic passenger-jet concepts that will connect cities in as little as one hour and fly up to 9 times faster than the speed of sound | Lockheed Martin
The Concorde was a supersonic commercial airliner, flying passengers at 1,350 miles per hour.
High costs, safety concerns, and loud sonic booms forced the plane to retire in 2003.
Several companies are trying to reintroduce ... |
| - | Los Angeles to Tokyo in an hour — a Texas startup is building a Mach 12 hypersonic plane that could dramatically reduce travel times | NicoElNino/iStock
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Venus Aerospace, a Houston startup, said its working on a Mach 12 hypersonic aircraft.
Travel between Los Angeles and Tokyo could take a hour, the company said.
Prime Movers Lab led Venus Aerospace's $3 million ... |
