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Charlotte, North Carolina-based Honeywell (Nasdaq: HON) continues to grow its presence in Houston, this time through the acquisition of software company Performix Inc.
Houston-based Performix provides manufacturing execution system software for pharmaceutical, biotech and chemical manufacturing. The company aims to provide clients in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics and specialty chemicals spaces with greater manufacturing efficiencies through digital procedure and batch applications. Performix's software also supplies customers with compliance and audit information
"Performix's manufacturing execution system software allows us to expand our capabilities and further accelerate Honeywell's connected life sciences vision of integrating data from multiple systems into a manufacturing ecosystem that assures quality, compliance and efficiency," said Ujjwal Kumar, president of Honeywell Process Solutions, a division headquartered in Houston.
In August, Honeywell announced it had moved another major company division — Performance Materials and Technologies — into Houston. Honeywell PMT is co-locating with the Process Solutions division on the CityWestPlace campus. The move earlier this summer grew Honeywell's Houston-area headcount to more than 850 employees.
We have two new examples of economic diversity in todays post. First a German based ondustrial technology company is expanding it's research facility in NW Houston and looking to accomodate the energy transition. And secondly a Data Center near the energy corridor is expanding to meet the needs of all kinds of businesses who need access to dependable fast Data.
A Siemens Energy facility in northwest Houston is slated to receive $30 million in expansions and renovations starting next month to shift its focus toward energy-transition projects.
The energy-technology company plans to add more research and development capabilities at its 105,000-square-foot Telge Road facility just south of Highway 290, said Arja Talakar, the senior vice president of Siemens Energy’s Houston-based Products business.
Hoping to make the facility more relevant in the energy transition, Germany-based Siemens Energy will shift Telge Road’s focus from gas turbines to gas compression research, with a special focus on hydrogen, Talakar said.
“It's about taking what we have and preparing for the next steps,” Talakar said. “Because with the growth we see coming in the fields of hydrogen and carbon capture, you must be able to come up with equipment which can handle larger pressures, volumes and flows.”
Today, about 400 people work for Siemens Energy in Houston, Talakar said. That does not include employees of other Siemens units such as the renewables-focused Siemens Gamesa, however.
Element Critical expanding Katy data center footprint, power capacity
After acquiring a local data center this spring, Vienna, Virginia-based Element Critical is expanding its footprint at the Katy facility.
The expansion of the Houston One data center at 22000 Franz Road will add 33,000 square feet, around a third of the facility's original size. The expansion will add two new 5-megawatt data halls, growing the data center's power capacity to a total of 32 megawatts, according to Element Critical, which provides data center co-location services. The expansion is scheduled to be completed by the second quarter of 2022.
"Businesses have experienced a seismic shift toward digital advancement and require the always-on availability and proven operational expertise that our purpose-built Houston facility provides," said Ken Parent, CEO of Critical Element, who previously served as COO of real estate investment trust The Mills Corp.
Element Critical announced the acquisition of the Houston One data center from Dallas-based Skybox Datacenters in March. The facility sits on 20 acres of land near the Energy Corridor and is situated directly adjacent to a 400-megawatt power substation. Houston One has a 6-inch-thick concrete roof and is capable of sustaining hurricane-force winds.
Houston-based Midway has landed new office tenants for its CityCentre mixed-use development in west Houston.
Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: J), Infosys Ltd. (NYSE: INFY) and Pin Oak Group will join Amazon Web Services, which leased a full floor in CityCentre Two earlier this year.
“We are thrilled that CityCentre is emerging as an innovation hub for new office tenants,” said Robert Williamson, senior vice president of investment management for Midway. “These companies are pioneers of technology and energy, and it is humbling to be able to offer these top-of-the-line office spaces for Houstonians in the process.”
Jacobs, a Dallas-based Fortune 500 company, signed a full-floor, 26,500-square-foot lease in CityCentre Two at 818 Town & Country Blvd., with plans to consolidate several smaller Houston offices into one space. Jacobs’ lease was signed in April but was only recently announced. The engineering firm plans to move into its new space early next year.
Bengaluru, India-based information technology giant Infosys agreed to lease 25,770 square feet on the top floor of CityCentre Two. The company also plans to move in early 2022. Infosys' Houston offices were previously located at 6002 Rogerdale Road in Chinatown.
Finally, Pin Oak Group leased 7,614 square feet in CityCentre Two for its new Houston headquarters. Currently, the investment firm’s offices are at 510 Bering St. in the Tanglewood area. Pin Oak Group plans to move into its new offices later this year.
Amazon Web Services' 26,000-square-foot lease in CityCentre Two was announced in June, along with the company's plans to add 150 corporate and tech jobs in Houston. The jobs will include positions such as cloud application architects, software development engineers for energy solutions, principal data scientists and more. They will support the Amazon Web Services operations and are in addition to the more than 300 corporate and tech roles already based in Houston.
By Chris Mathews – Reporter, Houston Business Journal
Oct 4, 2021, 3:54pm EDT
A variety of Houston-based companies in technology, legal services and energy services have announced mergers and acquisitions recently. Here's a look at deals from September and early October.
BMC Software
Houston-based technology firm BMC Software announced the acquisition of New York-based software company StreamWeaver on Oct. 1. BMC, one of the Houston region's largest tech companies, did not disclose the financial terms of the StreamWeaver acquisition.
StreamWeaver is an enterprise software firm that assists with IT observability, artificial intelligence operations, cloud migration and cost reduction, BMC said. The acquisition of StreamWeaver bolsters BMC's own capabilities in AI operations (AIOps) and the firm's AI-driven service management platform, BMC Helix.
Onit
Onit, one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the Houston metro region, announced Sept. 28 it had acquired BusyLamp, a German firm developing software for legal spend and matter management for European corporate legal departments. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, BusyLamp will operate as an independent subsidiary of Onit, which develops enterprise workflow software and AI platforms for corporate legal departments.
Lexitas
Houston-based Lexitas, a national provider of legal support services to law firms, acquired Minneapolis-based Benchmark Reporting Agency, the firms announced Sept. 14. Benchmark provides court reporters, litigation support and legal video services, bolstering Lexitas' capabilities in the Midwest region, the company said.
Separately, Registered Agent Solutions Inc. (RASI), a Lexitas company, announced acquiring Sacramento, California-based Corp2000, which specializes in public records filing and document retrieval. Corp2000 has offices in California and Delaware.
Symplr
Houston-based health care technology company Symplr announced plans to acquire Cincinnati-based Halo Health, which provides health care communication and collaboration software to improve clinician processes.
"Halo Health's modern approach to digital communication facilitates the rapid exchange of information, streamlines workflows, and improves patient safety," said Symplr CEO BJ Schaknowski. "The company's unified communication and collaboration platform consolidates outdated technology like pagers, feature phones, and legacy texting applications, presenting a strong return on investment opportunity for customers."
Even though it will look like your average run of the mill Chemical Plant this proprietary plastics recycling technology will greatly benefit the environment and add economic diversity to the greater Houston economy.
Exxon Mobil plans to build its first, large-scale plastic waste advanced recycling facility in Baytown, the company said Monday.
The new facility follows Exxon’s successful trials of its process for converting plastic waste into raw materials that could be used in food packaging, toys and furniture.
To date, the trials have recycled more than 1,000 metric tons of plastic waste, the equivalent of 200 million grocery bags, and have demonstrated they can process 50 metric tons per day, the company said.
Mark Mulligan, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer
Upon completion of the facility by the end of 2022, the operation is expected to recycle 30,000 metric tons of plastics per year, the company said.
“We’ve proven our proprietary advanced recycling technology in Baytown, and we’re scaling up operations to supply certified circular polymers by year-end,” said Karen McKee, president of ExxonMobil Chemical. “Availability of reliable advanced recycling capacity will play an important role in helping address plastic waste in the environment, and we are evaluating wide-scale deployment in other locations around the world.”
Follow up on an article we posted back in October of 2020
Houston-based Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Company LLC (Nasdaq: GLDD) has landed the first contract in the Port of Houston Authority’s $1 billion-plus endeavor to expand the Houston Ship Channel.
The $95 million agreement, which Port Houston officials finalized on Oct. 12, places strict emissions requirements on the dredges, delaying the start of widening 11.5 miles of the waterway from 530 to 700 feet.
“This kicks off an expansion program that many said (Port Houston) wouldn’t be able to do,” Hanson said in an interview. “Any of these port channel expansion programs face a lot of hurdles — from funding, authorization, permitting and then looking at it as an opportunity for environmental enhancement. They just take a massive amount of collaboration and patience.”
Great Lakes relocated its corporate headquarters to Houston from the Chicago area earlier this year, moving closer to where many of its projects have been in recent years: the U.S. Gulf Coast, CEO Lasse Petterson said in October 2020.
“We’re excited to see this one get started, and hopefully it’s a springboard for future (contracts),” Hanson said.
Nanoracks and Lockheed Martin partner on commercial space station project
WASHINGTON — Nanoracks, its majority owner Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin, will collaborate on the development of a commercial space station as others in industry warn of a potential space station gap.
Nanoracks said Oct. 21 that it was partnering with Lockheed Martin and Voyager Space on a commercial space station called Starlab. Nanoracks will be the prime contractor with Voyager handling strategy and investment and Lockheed serving as the manufacturer and technical integrator.
Nanoracks, Voyager Space and Lockheed Martin will collaborate on development of Starlab, a commercial space station that could launch as soon as 2027. Credit: Nanoracks
Starlab would consist of a docking node with an inflatable module attached to one side and a spacecraft bus, providing power and propulsion, attached to the other side. Starlab will have a volume of 340 cubic meters, about three-eighths that of the International Space Station, and generate 60 kilowatts of power. Starlab will be equipped with a robotic arm and “state-of-the-art” lab, and be able to host four astronauts at a time.
An estimated 10 to 12 companies submitted proposals for the first phase of the CLD program, with NASA expected to make two to four awards. Axiom Space, which has a NASA award to attach a commercial module to the ISS, has announced plans to use that module as a core of a future space station. Other companies, such as Blue Origin and Sierra Space, have either proposed space station concepts or indicated an interest in stations through job listings.
One Houston bioprinting firm is aquaired by a South Carolina firm, and one Houston resturant software company aquires a Kansas City Start-up. Both are expanding operations in Houston, and both are adding to the economic diversity of the Greater Houston economy.
Houston-based Volumetric Inc., a startup specializing in 3D bioprinting of replacement organs and tissue, is being acquired by South Carolina-based 3D Systems Corp. (NYSE: DDD).
The transaction, which consists of approximately half stock and half cash payments, is valued at $400 million if all milestones are accomplished. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
3D Systems, a provider of products and services serving the 3D printing space, will pay a closing payment of $45 million to acquire Volumetric. An additional $355 million opportunity will be linked to attaining "significant steps in the demonstration of human applications over the next several years," 3D Systems said.
Volumetric was spun out of Rice University by co-founders Jordan Miller and Bagrat Grigoryan. Miller, who is also currently an associate professor of bioengineering at Rice, is joining 3D Systems as chief scientist for regenerative medicine to lead the firm's efforts in manufacturing human lungs and other organs. Grigoryan will join as vice president of regenerative medicine at 3D Systems.
"We are so excited to join 3D Systems and its joint development program with United Therapeutics Corporation, working together to deliver on the promise of regenerative medicine," said Miller. "We will build out our R&D pipeline right here in Houston, next to the dozens of other innovative life sciences companies we have been working with, and alongside, for the past three years."
3D Systems and United Therapeutics (Nasdaq: UTHR) will continue efforts to manufacture and commercialize regenerative medicine and bioprinting tissue from Volumetric's 20,000-square-foot facility in the East End Maker Hub, an industrial makerspace that opened this year in Houston's East End. Volumetric was one of the first tenants to lease space at the East End Maker Hub last year when it signed on for 11,000 square feet of space. The startup later expanded its footprint in the EEMH to 20,000 square feet.
Houston restaurant software co. gobbles up Kansas City startup
By Kansas City Business Journal and Houston Business Journal staff
October 26, 2021, 12:18pm CDT
A local software company focused on the restaurant industry has acquired a Kansas City-area startup whose technology develops an e-commerce platform and websites that enable online ordering.
Houston-based HungerRush hopes to bolster its all-in-one restaurant system with the deal for Leawood, Kansas-based Menufy. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Menufy, founded in 2009, can integrate its technology with existing restaurant websites and point-of-sale systems. Its co-founders include current and former restaurateurs who wanted a better way to do business, CEO Sharmil Desai previously told the Kansas City Business Journal. Not surprisingly, the pandemic sent Menufy’s growth soaring. It doubled its employee base to 130 and nearly doubled its restaurant customers, which are in more than 3,000 U.S. cities. In April, Desai said the company planned to hire 20 more people before the year ends.
The acquisition of Menufy comes less than six months after HungerRush announced it acquired New York-based 9Fold, a developer of software for online ordering and digital marketing. In December 2020, HungerRush announced the acquisition of OrderAI, a provider of text- and voice-ordering services. In March, HungerRush launched its artificial intelligence-driven text-to-order offering for restaurants.
HungerRush is a portfolio company of Houston-based private equity firm The CapStreet Group. With $924 million in assets under management as of 2021, The CapStreet Group ranked No. 2 on the Houston Business Journal's 2021 Largest Venture Capital and Private Equity Firms List. The CapStreet Group has previously invested in other Houston-based companies, including ATM operator Cardtronics (Nasdaq: CATM) and health care governance software developer Symplr.
Dutch automotive co. Stellantis (parent company of Dodge, Chrysler, etc) is planting its financial US headquarters in Houston and actively seeking a larger office campus to house its growth.
Some 3,500 new employees will be split between Houston and Atlanta in the next 4 years.
A local Unicorn that we have posted about several times before has opened a new French office and is expanding it's European footprint and the economic diversity of the Greater Houston economy!
One of Houston's largest tech companies expands with Paris office
Houston-based financial technology unicorn HighRadius Corp. expanded its European footprint with a new office in Paris.
HighRadius' Paris office will employ local staff for all of the firm's customer-facing operations, including sales, marketing and consulting roles, HighRadius announced Nov. 4. In Europe, the company already has presences in Germany, Amsterdam and the U.K. HighRadius also has a presence in India.
The fintech company's artificial intelligence-driven HighRadius Autonomous Software platform has been used to process financial transactions totaling more than 475 billion euros in the company's European region, HighRadius said. Annually, the company processes over $2.2 trillion across its global footprint.
HighRadius is one of the few technology "unicorn" companies — or private companies valued at over $1 billion — headquartered in the Houston metro region. HighRadius, which develops a suite of software products for autonomous receivables, treasury management and accounting, said it had reached a valuation of $3.1 billion when it announced raising a $300 million Series C financing round in April.
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