Category Archives: News

SWAN is thrilled to announce Todd Litton as the new Houston Chapter Lead. For more than 20 years, Todd has worked in the Houston region in and across the legal, business, nonprofit/education, and political sectors. He has been able to leverage his extensive experience and expertise across these sectors to innovate and formulate partnerships and pathways that led to positive results for organizations and the community as a whole. Todd earned his B.A. degree from Duke University, his J.D. from The University of Texas School of Law, and his MBA from Rice University. He met his wife Jennifer Litton, a breast cancer doctor and researcher, at Duke. They live in the Rice/Medical Center area with their three children (though two have recently started college) and their dog. Todd believes the Houston region and its people are perfectly positioned to invest in and nurture the development of companies and entrepreneurs and is excited to focus on building the SWAN network in Houston.

Interim Houston Chapter Lead Valerie Tompson will continue her valuable contributions to SWAN as the Director of Communications.

SWAN portfolio company AIQUEOUS – a provider of customer relationship and program management software – and Apogee Interactive – a provider of customer engagement, education, and communication software – have combined to create a premier customer relationship & engagement platform for utilities and utility service providers. The unified entity is backed by M33 Growth, a growth-stage investment firm that partners with founders and management teams who have bootstrapped their businesses to a point where they are aiming to break through as market leaders.

“We believe that M33 is the perfect fit for AIQUEOUS as an equity partner,” said Jonathan Kleinman, CEO of AIQUEOUS. “By recognizing the value of our team, understanding the systems and support for our business stage, and experience scaling SaaS businesses, we believe that M33 provides the resources needed to achieve our mission and vision.”

More about this merger can be found HERE.

Aiqueous became a SWAN portfolio company in 2017.

SWAN is thrilled to announce the highly successful official kickoff of our Houston chapter, which took place on May 31st at the heart of Houston’s innovation district, the Ion. This memorable event, organized by SWAN’s Interim Houston Chapter lead Valerie Tompson, brought together over 70 passionate individuals who were eager to delve into the world of startup impact investing.

Joining SWAN Founder and Executive Director, Bob Bridge, in a panel to graciously share their expertise and experience were Kerri Smith, Executive Director, Rice Clean Energy Accelerator; Emily Reiser, Associate Director, TMC Innovation; and Grace Rodriguez – CEO | Executive Director, Impact Hub Houston as moderator.

During the event, panelists shed light on the distinguishing factors that set impact investing apart from traditional startup investing, including that impact investing goes beyond financial returns and seeks to generate positive social and environmental impact alongside financial gains. They also discussed the importance of aligning investment decisions with personal values and focusing on sectors that address pressing global challenges.

Moving forward, SWAN is excited to help foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and meaningful impact within the local Houston startup ecosystem and looks forward to witnessing the transformative power of impact investing in Houston and beyond!

College students can’t always get into the courses they want, even online ones. That’s why many schools share online courses across institutions to give students more flexibility in scheduling the classes they want and help them graduate.

Austin-based edtech startup College Consortium Inc., which does business as Acadeum, is one of the biggest players in this ecosystem, working with big schools like Texas A&M and smaller systems. Today, Acadeum announced it has closed an $11.9M series B funding round led by Austin-based Green Street Impact Partners. It is the fund’s first investment. Other investors included ECMC Group’s Education Impact Fund and Pearson Ventures.

Acadeum’s platform provides course sharing across national and regional schools, and the company has partnered with Coursera to expand offerings of professional certificates. Through course-sharing, schools can offer courses that they might not otherwise be able to.

For example, last year Complete College America launched a course-sharing initiative in partnership with Acadeum to help two-year schools aiming to start or expand technical programs.

“Today’s learners are older, and more likely to be parents or working, than at any point in our nation’s history. That new majority of learners are putting pressure on institutions to align course offerings with the realities of their schedules and responsibilities beyond the classroom,” David Daniels, CEO of Acadeum, stated. “At a moment when some are questioning the role and relevance of American colleges, we’re building tools to leverage the collective strength of our nation’s higher education system to unlock new opportunities for both institutions—and students.”

Acadeum was co-founded in 2016 by Joshua Pierce, Luis Felipe Rincon, Nathan Green, Osei Bonsu and Robert Manzer. It has now raised a total of $23.9M, according to Crunchbase.