In what is clearly a smart 'aqui-hire' situation, LaunchRock acquires Giftiki - the Houston-born gift collaboration service that raised just under $1m from angels and individual VC's like Tim Draper after going through the Brandery incubator. Best of luck to Bryan Jowers and his team and I hope we can get them back to Houston to tell their story soon. http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/20/launchrock-acquires-gif ...

Molly Ryan of the Houston Business Journal sits down with new Houston Startup founder Chris Lipari of Mach Interview: http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/print-edition/2012/07/20/mach-interview-brings-student-resumes.html   ...

The START coworking space is getting ready to launch and they are hosting a happy hour and a mobile-app hackathon to celebrate. The aptly name START Kickoff Appy Hour will be Friday June 8th from 6pm-9pm. The START Hackathon will be Saturday June 9th 7am - 7pm. The good news is that both events are completely free, and there are over $5,000 worth of prizes at the hackathon. But, there is one catch... you mu ...

Today’s Social Media Breakfast was an overview of the recent Social Media Analytics Summit, presented by Kami Huyse of Zoetica Media. She gave us a rundown of the current trends in social media analytics, including “big data” management, relationship mapping, and goal-setting in an enterprise environment. [caption id="attachment_1960" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Kami presents to 80+ attendees o ...

This is from an email I received from Trey Bowles, the Co-Chair of the Texas Region of Startup America. If any startups will be at SXSW and want to pitch, this is the place to do it. --- Startup Texas Friends, I wanted to follow back up with you. Startup America has selected few companies to be featured on stage at the Celebrate Startup Kick off Event at ACL (RSVP)  venue on Friday, March 9th from 7:00-10:0 ...

9th Annual Information Technology & Web Venture Forum Call for Presenters DEADLINE TODAY 5 pm: Apply to present your entrepreneurial company to over 400 investors and industry leaders Application Deadline: Friday, October 14, 2011, 5:00 pm Event Date: December 8, 2011 - Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University The Rice Alliance is currently accepting applications from Information Technology and We ...

9th Annual Information Technology & Web Venture Forum Call for Presenters:  apply to present your entrepreneurial company to over 400 investors and industry leaders Application Deadline: Friday, October 7, 2011,  5:00 pm Event Date: December 8, 2011 - Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University The Rice Alliance is currently accepting applications from Information Technology and Web companies to ...

SCHIPULCON 2011 October 6-7 Norris Conference Centers at CityCentre Houston, TX Register Schipul, The Web Marketing Company - helmed by none other the venerable startup champion Ed Schipul is putting on another design/technology/marketing event that is spanning two days at the beginning of October. From the press release: Focused around the central themes of Create, Profit and Reach, speakers such as Dries ...

It's finally here. A seed accelerator (similar to ycombinator, TechStars and Capital Factory) in Houston, Texas - the Energy Capital of the World, the program is designed to help emerging businesses accelerate their growth through an infusion of seed capital, an intense mentoring program and direct connections to industry insiders. Startups will apply to the program and be selected by a the leaders of the o ...

SimpApply is a company started by Rice University students, Abhishek Nag, Norman Pai and Yilong Yao. Basically, it allows graduating college students to fill out a single, aggregated job application that hiring companies can use instead of individual applications that they currently require. This simplifies both the job search and hiring process on both sides of the equation. Very clever and a great team to ...