PRIME SHOPPING

Amazon tries on same-day mall delivery in Houston for in-demand items

Houston Prime members have a new option for skipping mall parking and lines.

Photo courtesy of Amazon

Amazon has tapped more than 10 markets to roll out its new retail delivery service — and Houston makes the list.

Prime members can browse a handful of retail stores online on Amazon or through the app if they reside in one of the selected ZIP codes in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, Scottsdale, Seattle, Washington D.C., and more. The initial roll out of the service includes brands PacSun, GNC, SuperDry, and Diesel, but, according to Amazon, Sur La Table and 100% Pure will also be added into the mix over the next few months.

“We see high potential in our expanded seller partnership with Amazon, which includes delivery directly from select PacSun retail locations,” says Mimi Ruiz, vice president of ecommerce at PacSun, in a news release. “This is one more way for us to offer our customers the styles they want and love, when they want them.”

Users can check online to see if the service is available in their area. Some stores offer pickup too, but delivery is $2.99 or free for Prime members as long as they meet the $25 order minimum.

“The expansion of Amazon’s Same-Day Delivery to include beloved brands delivered directly from nearby retail locations is just another way we are offering customers even greater selection, at faster speeds,” says Sarah Mathew, director of Amazon Delivery Experience, in the release. “We are excited to see this new model come to life and look forward to adding more brands, stores, and locations to the program.”

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This article originally ran on our sister site InnovationMap.

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start me up

Texas ranks near the top of best states for startups, study finds

Texas ranks third on a new list of the best states for investors and startups.

Investment platform BrokerChooser weighed five factors to come up with its ranking:

2024 Google search volume for terms related to investing
Number of investors
Number of businesses receiving investments in 2024
Total amount of capital invested in businesses in 2024
Percentage change in amount of investment from 2019 to 2024

Based on those figures, provided mostly by Crunchbase, Texas sits at No. 3 on the list, behind No. 1 California and No. 2 New York.

Especially noteworthy for Texas is its investment total for 2024: more than $164.5 billion. From 2019 to 2024, the state saw a 440 percent jump in business investments, according to BrokerChooser. The same percentages are 204 percent for California and 396 percent for New York.

“There is definitely development and diversification in the American investment landscape, with impressive growth in areas that used to fly under the radar,” says Adam Nasli, head analyst at BrokerChooser.

According to Crunchbase, funding for Texas startups is off to a strong start in 2025. In the first three months of this year, venture capital investors poured nearly $2.9 billion into Lone Star State companies, Crunchbase data shows. Crunchbase attributes that healthy dollar amount to “enthusiasm around cybersecurity, defense tech, robotics, and de-extincting mammoths.”

During the first quarter of this year, roughly two-thirds of VC funding in Texas went to just five companies, says Crunchbase. Those companies are Austin-based Apptronik, Austin-based Colossal Biosciences, Dallas-based Island, Austin-based NinjaOne, and Austin-based Saronic.

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

Houston Downtown modern business city with skyscraper city scape with park view from Buffalo Bayou center of Houston city, Texas, United States of America, US at sunset time

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Texas remains a leading destination for startups.