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    it takes two to make a thing go right

    Tennis superstar Serena Williams backs Houston startup's innovative new couple's therapy platform

    Natalie Harms, InnovationMap
    May 23, 2022 | 10:24 am
    couple in room laptop
    OURS is re-imagining and de-stigmatizing couples therapy.
    Photo by Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

    A Houston startup that's re-imagining mental health treatment and counseling has emerged from stealth, announcing financial support from seed investors including tennis legend and venture capital investor Serena Williams.

    Targeting the $5 trillion health and wellness market, OURS is founded by family therapist and author Liz Earnshaw, as well as Adam Putterman and Jessica Holton.

    “We’re excited to take this first step in shifting the way we think about relationship health. We are building for a world that treats relationship health with equal importance as physical, mental and emotional health. We want working on your relationships to be an everyday experience, accessible to all,” says Holton, who serves as co-CEO, in a news release.

    The company has raised nearly $5 million pre-seed and seed round from investors including TMV, Serena Ventures, Lakehouse Ventures, Collaborative Fund, GreyMatter, and pioneering angel investors such as Andy Dunn.

    “Research shows that relationships are the most important factor to our overall health and wellbeing, which is an area that I'm hyper-focused on in my personal life,” says Williams, managing partner of San Francisco-based Serena Ventures, in the release. “When I learned about what the team was doing, I knew this was something we needed to support.

    "OURS offers a reimagined and preventative solution to relationship wellness that's not only experiential and research-backed, but memorable and fun," she continues. "We're proud to be early investors in a brand that is making relationship health accessible to couples everywhere and play an integral part of the larger OURS mission.”

    The company launched its beta in 2020 and has already worked with thousands of customers and has an engaged community of couples across its platforms.

    The OURS founders were inspired by their own experiences with couples counseling and created a technology-enabled platform based of expert and data-backed research.

    “As it stands, the current mental health and wellness space is largely geared towards individuals, yet nearly 50 percent of couples have either participated in, or have sought out solutions, to foster stronger romantic partnerships,” says Soraya Darabi, co-founder and general partner at TMV, in the release. “However, a lack of therapists — until now — or confused perception of couples counseling leave needs unmet.”

    Initially targeting romantic partners, the platform costs $400 for a four-week program that includes six personalized interactive sessions with an OURS guide at the helm of the experience. These one-hour technology-powered sessions are based around an innovative new technology, called Loveware, and include dynamic and meaningful conversations between a couple that are built around the magic that comes from being in the room with an expert.

    ---

    This article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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    a major award

    $2.6 million grant funds UH research towards a fentanyl vaccine

    InnovationMap Staff
    Dec 17, 2025 | 3:15 pm
    Hands holding pill bottle
    Photo by Jellybee on Unsplash
    UH has received a new financial gift towards the Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program, which is developing a fentanyl vaccine.

    The estate of Dr. William A. Gibson has granted the University of Houston a $2.6 million gift to support and expand its opioid addiction research, including the development of a fentanyl vaccine that could block the drug's ability to enter the brain.

    The gift builds upon a previous donation from the Gibson estate that honored the scientist’s late son Michael, who died from drug addiction in 2019. The original donation established the Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program in UH's department of psychology. The latest donation will establish the Michael Conner Gibson Endowed Professorship in Psychology and the Michael Conner Gibson Research Endowment in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences.

    “This incredibly generous gift will accelerate UH’s addiction research program and advance new approaches to treatment,” Daniel O’Connor, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, said in a news release.

    The Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program is led by UH professor of psychology Therese Kosten and Colin Haile, a founding member of the UH Drug Discovery Institute. Currently, the program produces high-profile drug research, including the fentanyl vaccine.

    According to UH, the vaccine can eliminate the drug’s “high” and could have major implications for the nation’s opioid epidemic, as research reveals Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is treatable.

    The endowed professorship is combined with a one-to-one match from the Aspire Fund Challenge, a $50 million grant program established in 2019 by an anonymous donor. UH says the program has helped the university increase its number of endowed chairs and professorships, including this new position in the department of psychology.

    “Our future discoveries will forever honor the memory of Michael Conner Gibson and the Gibson family,” O’Connor added in the release. “And I expect that the work supported by these endowments will eventually save many thousands of lives.”

    ----

    This story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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