Seven student startups showcased their ventures at the Summer Venture Studio Preview Day hosted by Rice University’s Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The three-month intensive program is meant to provide equity-free funding and individualized support.
The selective, cohort-based entrepreneurial accelerator for Rice students, the Summer Venture Studio is open to founders from all majors and degree programs, including students graduating the May the program begins. The team at Lilie provides mentorship, coworking spaces, and resources so the ventures can develop their plans in a collaborative and encouraging environment. Founders learn everything from identifying a target market to perfecting the pitch. SVS founders also have the opportunity to learn from and network with industry-leading experts.
Hosted by the Ion District and in partnership with the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, SVS Preview Day is both a showcase and a celebration of Houston’s innovation community.
For instance, one of the competing ventures, Lucero Health, is on a mission to enhance community-based care. Halbert Kim, CEO and Rice junior, spent a gap year in South Korea before coming to Rice and worked at one of the busiest hospitals in Seoul. He saw that the biggest barriers to health aren’t always medical, but social. Some patients don’t have reliable transportation or funds to buy medications and groceries.
“I formed Lucero Health, a nonprofit that helps resolve patient needs and tackles this exact problem,” Kim said. “On one side, we have the patient mobile app that screens for social needs and immediately intervenes and gives them personalized support through resources and social services in their area. On the other end, we have an intelligent dashboard for the care team, where they can track all their patients and intervene before conditions get worse. And this isn’t just the concept. This is something we’re launching already, and we’re working with one of the largest community health centers in Houston, launching at five different locations with 80 patients, over 350 touchpoints so far, and five specialties.”
Each competing team gets dedicated instruction and mentorship — Lilie staff bring an open-minded, collaborative approach to entrepreneurship with a team of successful founders including Lilie executive director, Kyle Judah. In addition to teaching the well-known and loved course, Founder’s Journey, Judah works with the Lilie team on building new programming that focuses on everything from research commercialization to experiential opportunities.
“We’re a one-stop shop for all of it, both in and out of the classroom,” Judah said. “Whether its competitions, whether it’s our experiential courses, the entrepreneurship minor or the No. 1 ranked graduate entrepreneurship program in the country for seven years in a row.”
Two ventures from the 2026 SVS cohort were not in attendance on preview day because they were spending the remainder of the summer at Y Combinator and 16Z Speedrun programs — two large, nationally recognized startup accelerators. Rice founders have earned enormous success in Rice’s entrepreneurship ecosystem and beyond. More than half of participating SVS ventures have gone on to raise pre-seed or seed financing, while alumni companies have earned acceptance into some of the world’s most competitive accelerators programs. Morph Labs and Veloci have earned national recognition and continued commercial traction. Solidec recently announced an oversubscribed funding round and, together with fellow Lilie venture Helix Earth, have become the two largest startup tenants in Houston’s Ion District.
“The Rice startup ecosystem is putting wins on the board at unprecedented scales,” Judah said. “Whether it’s drones and autonomy, whether it’s Helix Earth and sustainability and energy efficiency, whether it’s Norra developing AI agents for the health care industry, Coflux, Solidec and Tierra Climate, the list goes on and on and on. This great tradition that we’ve now built, this great legacy that this next crop is going to carry on forward.”
On Aug. 25, the nine ventures will pitch their business to the on-campus Rice community as part of Summer Venture Studio Demo Day and can win non-dilutive funding. It’s one of the highlights of FIESTA, Lilie’s celebration of the new academic year and all of the innovation, science, technology and art at Rice. Register to attend here.