—Hurricane Harvey’s landfall on the Texas Gulf Coast was catastrophic, causing damage to communities from Corpus Christi, TX, to Beaumont on the border of Texas and Louisiana. The storm also disabled Houston, the nation’s fourth largest city. Rice University’s Kinder Institute created a “story map” with storm-related data to illustrate the economic cost of the storm. The map includes visual illustrations of rainfall estimates by community; most-affected neighborhoods; location, age, and building type of affected buildings; demographic characteristics of the affected population; and information on school damage.
—A trio of Austin startups announced new rounds of funding last week:
E-retailer Tecovas announced on Friday that it has raised $2.6 million in equity funding, in a round led by YETI Capital and joined by at least some existing investors. The Austin-based bootmaker and e-commerce site was founded two years ago with the goal of providing custom-made boots at a lower-price point than in typical retail stores. In October 2016, the startup raised $1.8 million from investors such as New York-based Blue Seed Collective and Brian Spaly, founder of Bonobos and founder and CEO of Trunk Club, according to a company press release. It is not clear which of the previous investors joined the latest round of funding.
Shipwell, a online freight shipping platform, raised $2 million in new equity funding, Austin Inno reports, citing SEC documents. The Austin-based startup has developed software that provides pricing quotes on freight shipments as well as online booking and tracking services.
Lastly, ePatientFinder, which has software that keeps physicians updated when new clinical trials become available in their area, reported raising $2.6 million, according to Austin Inno. This funding follows a raise of $8.2 million last year, the site reported.
—The Texas Medical Center’s Innovation Institute announced news about two of its medtech startups and one resident company of the Houston JLabs program, which is based at TMC.
Navi Medical Technologies and Corinnova each received $50,000 awards at the Pediatric Device Innovation Symposium held Sept. 25 in San Jose, CA, according to a press release. Navi, part of this year’s TMCx accelerator medical device cohort, is developing a device to provide better information about the location of an umbilical venous catheter, which is used in critically ill newborns. Houston-based Corinnova, which is based at JLabs, is creating a soft, robotic biventricular cardiac assist device for the treatment of heart failure in children.
Vios Medical, a Minnesota-based health IT startup that was part of the TMCx health IT accelerator program this year, was acquired by Murata Manufacturing, according to a Sept. 23 press release. Murata offered $25.8 million in cash and more than 500,000 shares of common stock, worth about $75.7 million, to Vios shareholders. The Japanese maker of ceramic capacitors had already owned 3 percent of Vios. Murata regards the medical business as one path to growth, and the Japanese company said it planned to capitalize on Vios’ global connections with medical institutions, according to the press statement.
—Zebra Imaging announced it has sold its 3-D holographic imagers and print business to HoloTech Switzerland. Terms were not disclosed. Austin-based Zebra’s digital holographic technology creates three-dimensional images that can be seen without specialized glasses or viewing aids, the company said.
