Hatch Pitch Announces TiE Hatch Pitch 2026 Winners
HOUSTON, Texas - November 3, 2026 - Hatch Pitch announced the winners of the inaugural TiE Hatch Pitch event in partnership with TiE Houston, which took place October 28 at the Ion Houston during the TiEcon Texas 2026 Conference. In addition to the three winners chosen by the Hatch Pitch judges, the Crowd Favorite award was selected by the audience in the room and online.
The winners of the 2026 TiE Hatch Pitch event are:
1st Place: IronLattice (Houston, TX)
2nd Place: ByteTrail (Dallas, TX)
3rd Place: MbeleMed (Dallas, TX)
Crowd Favorite: ByteTrail (Dallas, TX)
Each of the winners received memberships to TiE Houston and TiE Dallas, giving them access to TiE funding networks, to TiE national and global events, and most importantly, exceptional exposure to global TiE members, event attendees, corporates, and potential investors who are looking for the latest in cutting-edge automation technology.
“We are honored to showcase leading automation startups from Texas and beyond for the first time together with TiE,” said Hatch Pitch Founder, Greg Wright. “This event highlighted the critical role that coaching and “deep tech translation” play in preparing startups tackling complex problems. Congratulations to this new cohort of automation innovators!”
"All of these were automation projects. They're hard. They're deep. They're technical. And you have to strip all of that away and just talk about what we are doing and why," said ByteTrail CEO, Brenda Stoner. “There were three kinds of coaching that went on here. We had our personal pitch coach. We had a master class where we had to show up and be ready. And then we had the emotional kind of storytelling coaching about how you are projecting your energy on the stage.”
“Storytelling, it's so human, right?” said Arrow Analytics COO, Val McNeil. “For thousands of years we've passed down things that we care about. And it's scientifically proven that people remember a story far more than facts and figures. And so finding a way to share it in a way that resonates with people and that paints a picture and makes you want to hear more, that was huge. So, taking a step back and thinking about our businesses from a variety of angles, it took a long time to get to three minutes, but there's probably more than three minutes of value for the audience and ourselves.”
The 10 participating companies at TiE Hatch Pitch 2026 represent top startups solving real world problems through the use of automation. Prominent trends showcased at this year’s event included artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics, digital twins, cybersecurity, real time analysis, predictive analytics, and cardiac risk prediction.
Anyone still interested in judging the pitches for themselves have the opportunity to watch the livestream recording and use the judging tools to score and provide feedback to the finalists at https://www.hatchpitch.com/tietx26.
For a complete list of the 2026 Finalists, visit: https://www.hatchpitch.com/news/2026-tiehp-finalists-announced
About Hatch Pitch
Hatch Pitch is a founder-first platform for startup coaching, showcases, pitch competitions, and corporate innovation. Through virtual and in-person coaching, and livestreamed hybrid competitions, Hatch Pitch helps founders communicate their value and connect with investors, partners, and ecosystem builders. Its approach pairs expert coaching with compelling stage experiences, giving complex innovative ideas the clarity and visibility they deserve. Over 14 years, participating startups have collectively raised more than $20 billion in funding and exits. Hatch Pitch also brings its coaching and showcase model to corporate innovation programs, integrating with ISO 56000 innovation management frameworks to help organizations develop ideas, engage internal innovators, and strengthen their innovation ecosystems. Learn more at https://www.hatchpitch.com/.
About TiEcon Texas
TiECon Texas is a joint initiative of TiE Houston, TiE Dallas, and TiE Austin that brings together entrepreneurs, investors, corporate leaders, policymakers, educators and ecosystem partners to accelerate innovation across Texas. The 2026 edition, themed “The Future Runs on Automation,” took place October 28-29 at the Ion in Houston and featured keynotes, expert panels, fireside chats, startup showcases and the TiE Hatch Pitch competition. Learn more at www.tiecontexas.org.
About the Winners
1st Place
IronLattice (Houston, TX) - A deep tech startup building Gator Memory™, a nonvolatile memory architecture designed for the AI era. As AI workloads outgrow today's memory, data centers and defense systems need a better way to store and move data. Spun out of Rice University, our capacitor free memory cell runs in existing logic fabs and uses industry standard packaging, giving us a capital efficient path to manufacturing at scale. Built on domestically sourced materials free of conflict minerals and rare earths, IronLattice is helping build the memory that powers human potential.
2nd Place & Crowd Favorite
ByteTrail (Dallas, TX) - Keeps the devices that run critical infrastructure secure and up to date. Power grids. Water systems. Factories. Hospitals. They all depend on connected devices in the field, far from the people who manage them. Updates are slow manual work that too often never happens. The tools that could help were built for laptops and data centers. Not for the edge. ByteTrail closes that gap. It finds what software runs on each device. It fixes weaknesses without disrupting operations. It proves every action with a tamper-evident record regulators can trust.
3rd Place
MbeleMed (Dallas, TX) - The first AI-enabled platform to make preventive cardiac screening actionable at population scale. Starting with high-risk seniors and expectant mothers, we use health data and predictive analytics to identify those most likely to have hidden cardiac risk, then coordinate remote monitoring, physician review, and follow-up. Our model ties payment to meaningful findings, not screening volume: health plans pay when monitoring uncovers physician-confirmed risk worth acting on. If monitoring finds nothing actionable, there is no MbeleMed fee, allowing partners to screen intelligently, direct resources to those who need them most, and intervene before risk becomes a costly emergency.