calling all funders

Greentown Houston announces new investor program to increase equity in climatetech funding

The Houston Ion District Investor Activation Program is open to accredited investors and free to join. Photo via GreentownLabs.com

Greentown Labs has announced a new program to address inequity and unavailability of funding for early-stage climatetech startups.

The Houston Ion District Investor Activation Program is supported by a Build to Scale Capital Challenge grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration, open to accredited investors, and free to join.

Participating investors will have access to curated startup introductions based on preferred stage, industry, check size, and more, plus access to information on startups and investor-specific newsletters featuring Greentown startups invite-only events.

"This program brings early-stage investors from Greater Houston into the fold, offering education on climatetech investing, channeling a pool of capital to young startups, and catalyzing a thriving climatetech investment ecosystem that prioritizes diversity, equity, and inclusion," reads the email announcing the program.

Members will also get networking opportunities with fellow investors and leading climatetech startups, which includes investor roundtables. Sector Pitch Days, and more Educational workshops on climatetech investing run by Vinson & Elkins, and more will be made available. The new initiative is meant “ to strengthen Houston’s energy-transition ecosystem” according to a news release.

In 2023, Greentown Labs helped 87 corporate partners, and collaborated with over 70 Houston startups. Some of their members recently achieved success in their respective fields.

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A View From HETI

Researchers from Rice University say their recent findings could revolutionize power grids, making energy transmission more efficient. Image via Getty Images.

A new study from researchers at Rice University, published in Nature Communications, could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use.

The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials.

A team led by Rice’s Qimiao Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, used quantum Fisher information (QFI), a concept from quantum metrology, to measure how electron interactions evolve under extreme conditions. The research team also included Rice’s Yuan Fang, Yiming Wang, Mounica Mahankali and Lei Chen along with Haoyu Hu of the Donostia International Physics Center and Silke Paschen of the Vienna University of Technology. Their work showed that the quantum phenomenon of electron entanglement peaks at a quantum critical point, which is the transition between two states of matter.

“Our findings reveal that strange metals exhibit a unique entanglement pattern, which offers a new lens to understand their exotic behavior,” Si said in a news release. “By leveraging quantum information theory, we are uncovering deep quantum correlations that were previously inaccessible.”

The researchers examined a theoretical framework known as the Kondo lattice, which explains how magnetic moments interact with surrounding electrons. At a critical transition point, these interactions intensify to the extent that the quasiparticles—key to understanding electrical behavior—disappear. Using QFI, the team traced this loss of quasiparticles to the growing entanglement of electron spins, which peaks precisely at the quantum critical point.

In terms of future use, the materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

The team also found that quantum information tools can be applied to other “exotic materials” and quantum technologies.

“By integrating quantum information science with condensed matter physics, we are pivoting in a new direction in materials research,” Si said in the release.

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