Houston lures innovator from Minsk
Program set up to draw entrepreneurs in an effort to make the city a hotbed for lucrative technology companies
D MITRY Krivonos is developing a wearable tracker with a battery to outlast those currently on the market. To pursue this endeavor, he left his home in Minsk, Belarus, and launched the startup in Houston.
Krivonos was lured by local efforts to promote tech entrepreneurs — and by seed money and connections promised through a new program launched by Softeq, a 21year-old company that develops custom software and hardware for its clients.
“I think this place will be evolving and developing,” Krivonos said, “and is probably the right place to start a new company.”
Krivonos is the first entrepreneur accepted into the Start@Softeq program. In partnership with Station Houston, the program provides funding, development support and Station Houston membership to startups developing cybersecurity, Internet of Things or robotics-related technologies.
Attracting outside entrepreneurs. Providing seed capital. Connecting them with established companies and their Fortune 500 customers. It’s the type of momentum Houston is hoping to stimulate as the city seeks to become a hotbed for lucrative technology companies and venture capital.
“Rather than just watch it, we would get hands-on in-
volved and figure out how we would bring this vision to life,” said Joel Carter, vice president of business development for Softeq and program administrator for Start@Softeq.
In exchange for 10 percent equity, the four-month Start@Softeq program provides entrepreneurs with $25,000 in cash, an additional $25,000 worth of assistance from developers at Softeq and six months of membership at Station Houston, a local hub for tech innovation and entrepreneurship.
The first class of entrepreneurs at Start@Softeq will complete the program this fall, ideally culminating during a weeklong, city-wide festivity for startups. This could allow Start@Softeq entrepreneurs to pitch their businesses and seek further resources during the event. Softeq hopes to launch another program in the spring and then continue growing it.
“They want to find great entrepreneurs to invest and work with,” said John “JR” Reale, cofounder and CEO of Station Houston. “… They want to be supportive of the broader initiative of what we’re doing here in town.”
Krivonos is developing a GPS tracker than can be hooked onto pet collars, children’s backpacks and other items. The battery should last for six months to a year, he said, compared with current devices that have to be recharged every few days.
He said the local network provided by Start@Softeq was an especially appealing draw to Houston. And since he used to work at Softeq in Belarus, he trusts the company and its developers.
There are two more positions — one in cybersecurity and one in robotics — that Start@Softeq is close to filling. Choosing to focus on these types of businesses was intentional.
“It’s absolutely aligned with everything that Houston Exponential has set out to do,” said Brian Richards, managing director of the Houston Innovation Hub at Accenture and chair of the thematic focus area committee for Houston Exponential.
Houston Exponential is a nonprofit formed in October by merging the Houston Technology Center with the Greater Houston Partnership's technology innovation roundtable and the Mayor's Technology & Innovation Task Force.
It has included robotics, cybersecurity and Internet of Things among focus areas where Houston could plant a flag and become well known. It identified these by looking at Houston’s existing strengths and by looking at technologies that could be used across multiple Houston industries, attract venture capital and encourage startup density, Richards said.
Connecting startups with larger enterprises is also essential for this ecosystem, and the partnership between Softeq and Station Houston enhances the latter’s role as an intermediary, said Ed Egan, director of the Rice University Baker Institute’s McNair Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation.
He likes that Station Houston is getting an accelerator-like program, though one day he hopes to see a more official, inhouse accelerator.
Reale said Station Houston continues to evolve its membership offering based on entrepreneur needs and its business strategy. Whether it will add a formal accelerator program remains to be seen. Either way, he hopes creating startup density will spur many more business accelerator and accelerator-like programs.
He wouldn’t call Start@Softeq an official accelerator. Instead, he said it’s designed to assist entrepreneurs in launching and designing a minimum viable product with the help of Softeq and at Station Houston.
“It makes entrepreneurship accessible,” he said.