forward thinking

Texas lands inside top 15 in new ranking of most innovative states

Texas is chugging along as an innovative state.

Texas continued its year-over-year improvement on an annual report of most innovative states.

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It's another year of slow but steady progress for the Lone Star State on an annual report on the top states for innovation.

Texas ranked No. 14 with a score of 48.43 points on personal finance site WalletHub's Most and Least Innovative States in 2024 ranking. Last year, Texas ranked No. 15. The state has steadily inched up the list — Texas was No.16 on the list in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

According to the report, Texas had the following ranking across the following categories:

No. 19 – Share of STEM Professionals
No. 16 – Projected STEM-Job Demand by 2030
No. 25 – Eighth-Grade Math & Science Performance
No. 19 – Share of Science & Engineering Graduates Aged 25+
No. 13 – Share of Technology Companies
No. 31 – R&D Spending per Capita
No. 15 – Venture-Capital Funding per Capita

Source: WalletHub

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 25 key metrics and across two key dimensions, “Human Capital” and “Innovation Environment," per the report. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

“The most innovative states are especially attractive to people who have majored in science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, as they offer abundant career opportunities and investment dollars, both for jobs at existing companies and for startups," says Cassandra Happe, a WalletHub analyst in the report. "These states also instill young students with the skills they need to succeed in the current workforce, skills which are useful whether or not they pursue a STEM career.”

The report's top 10 included:

No. 1 – District of Columbia with a score of 71.65
No. 2 – Massachusetts with a score of 69.93
No. 3 – Washington with a score of 66.36
No. 4 – California with a score of 65.63
No. 5 – Colorado with a score of 63.93
No. 6 – Maryland with a score of 62.41
No. 7 – Virginia with a score of 59.86
No. 8 – Delaware with a score of 54.58
No. 9 – Utah with a score of 53.66
No. 10 – New Jersey with a score of 53.2

This report originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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Big Business

11 booming Dallas-Fort Worth companies zoom to top of Inc. 5000

Dallas Texas Downtown Drone Skyline Aerial

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Allen-based Yantran is riding the information technology wave all the way to the top of the Inc. 5000’s 10 fastest-growing private companies.

With three-year revenue growth of 258,740 percent, the company appears at No. 3 on this year’s Inc. 5000 list. The prestigious 2026 list ranks private companies based on percentage revenue growth from 2022 to 2025.

Yantran, founded in 2022, is an IT services, technology consulting, and AI-driven product development company. It ranks as the No. 1 fastest-growing IT services company in the U.S., as well as the No. 1 fastest-growing company in Texas and the Metroplex. It's joined by 10 other booming Dallas-Fort Worth businesses in the top 250.

The honorees will be recognized October 14-16 at the 2026 Inc. 5000 Conference & Gala, which will be held in Dallas. The other Dallas-Fort Worth companies at the top of the list are:

No. 12 Paek Management Group, 12,520 percent (Irving)
No. 82 Elite Robotics and Automation, 3,334 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 133 Outamation, 2,291 percent (Southlake)
No. 147 Red Creek Solutions, 2,119 percent (Frisco)
No. 155 JobTread Software, 2,071 percent (Dallas)
No. 164 DAX Eyewear, 1,977 percent (Nevada)
No. 186 Optimized Waste Removal, 1,830 percent (Fort Worth)
No. 204 Freight Flex, 1,642 percent (Denton)
No. 212 Maverick Power, 1,591 percent (McKinney)
No. 229 Innovative Life Sciences, 1,494 percent (McKinney)

The Metroplex leads Texas with the most companies in the top 250 of this year's Inc. 5000. DFW is followed by Austin (10 companies); Houston (seven companies); and San Antonio , El Paso, and Amarillo (one company each):

Austin

No. 9 Investment Watches, 15,741 percent
No. 72 Razor Metrics, 3,856 percent
No. 91 Autonomize AI, 2,921 percent
No. 102 Choose Your Horizon, 2,719 percent
No. 132 Wander Staffing, 2,296 percent
No. 144 Everyday Dose, 2,179 percent
No. 148 NetRise, 2,118 percent
No. 163 Nutrabound Labs, 1,999 percent (Bastrop)
No. 179 Steadily, 1,890 percent
No. 208 Tiny Health, 1,624 percent

Houston

No. 3 Epique Realty, 23,210 percent
No. 27 Empact Technologies, 8,275 percent
No. 60 Action1, 4,512 percent
No 75 Signs By G, 3,684 percent
No. 79 The ’Pause Life, 3,469 percent (Galveston)
No. 110 Turtlebox Audio, 2,576 percent
No. 178 Dahnani Private Equity Group, 1,904 percent (Stafford)

San Antonio

No. 118 Hire With Near, 2,421 percent

El Paso

No. 80, LEH Homes, 3,438 percent

Amarillo

No. 249, Optimum Rope Access Solutions, 1,361 percent

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A version of this article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

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Big Business

11 booming Dallas-Fort Worth companies zoom to top of Inc. 5000