CERA pitches

50+ teams announced for CERAWeek's annual clean tech pitch competition

Houston-based Solidec took home the top TEX-E price and $25,000 at last year's Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition. Photo courtesy of HETI

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, the Houston Energy Transition Initiative and the Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange for Energy announced the 30-plus energy ventures and five student teams that will pitch at the 2025 Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition during CERAWeek next month.

The ventures are focused on driving efficiency and advancements toward the energy transition and will each present a 3.5-minute pitch before a network of investors and industry partners during CERAWeek's Agora program.

The pitch competition is divided up into the TEX-E university track, in which Texas student-led energy startups compete for $50,000 in cash prizes, and the industry ventures track.

Teams competing in the TEX-E Prize track include:

  • ECHO
  • HEXAspec
  • HydroStor Analytics
  • Nanoborne
  • Pattern Materials

The industry track is subdivided into three additional tracks, spanning materials to clean energy and will feature 36 companies. The top three companies from each industry track will be named. The winner of the CERAWeek competition will also have the chance to advance and compete for the $1 million investment prize at the Startup World Cup in October 2025.

Teams come from around the world, including several notable Houston-based ventures, such as Corrolytics, Rheom Materials, AtmoSpark Technologies, and others. Click here to see the full list of companies and investor groups that will participate.

The pitch competition will be held Wednesday, March 12, at CERAWeek from 1-4:30 pm. An Agora pass is required to attend.

Those without passes can catch more than 50 companies at a free pitch preview at the Ion. Pitches will be followed by private meetings with venture capitalists, corporate innovation groups, industry leaders, and tech scouts. The preview will be held Tuesday, March 11, from 9:30 am to 2:30 pm at the Ion. It's free to attend, but registration is required. Click here to register.

Last year, Houston-based Solidec took home the top TEX-E price and $25,000 cash awards. The startup extracts molecules from water and air, then transforms them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions. Its co-founder and Rice University professor Haotian Wang was recently awarded the 2025 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research.

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A View From HETI

Houston-based Solidec has partnered with Lynas Rare Earth on a clean hydrogen peroxide production pilot in Australia. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

Solidec has partnered with Australia-based Lynas Rare Earth, an environmentally responsible producer of rare earth oxides and materials, to reduce emissions from hydrogen peroxide production.

The partnership marks a milestone for the Houston-based clean chemical manufacturing startup, as it would allow the company to accelerate the commercialization of its hydrogen peroxide generation technology, according to a news release.

"This collaboration is a major milestone for Solidec and a catalyst for sustainability in rare earths," Yang Xia, co-founder and CTO of Solidec, said in the release. "Solidec's technology can reduce the carbon footprint of hydrogen peroxide production by up to 90%. By combining our generators with the scale of a global leader in rare earths, we can contribute to a more secure, sustainable supply of critical minerals."

Through the partnership, Solidec will launch a pilot program of its autonomous, on-site generators at Lynas's facility in Australia. Solidec's generators extract molecules from water and air and convert them into carbon emission-free chemicals and fuels, like hydrogen peroxide. The generators also eliminate the need for transport, storage and permitting, making for a simpler, more efficient process for producing hydrogen peroxide than the traditional anthraquinone process.

"Hydrogen peroxide is essential to rare earth production, yet centralized manufacturing adds cost and complexity," Ryan DuChanois, co-founder and CEO of Solidec, added in the release. "By generating peroxide directly on-site, we're reinventing the chemical supply chain for efficiency, resilience, and sustainability."

The companies report that the pilot is expected to generate 10 tons of hydrogen peroxide per year.

If successful, the pilot would serve as a model for large-scale deployments of Solidec's generators across Lynas' operations—and would have major implications for the high-performance magnet, electric vehicles, wind turbine, and advanced electronics industries, which rely on rare earth elements.

"This partnership with Solidec is another milestone on the path to achieving our Towards 2030 vision," Luke Darbyshire, general manager of R&I at Lynas, added. "Working with Solidec allows us to establish transformative chemical supply pathways that align with our innovation efforts, while contributing to our broader vision for secure, sustainable rare earth supply chains."

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