Approximately 100 startups from around the world pitched their breakthrough technologies and businesses during Houston Energy and Climate Week, with a select few taking home top prizes and bragging rights.
Each year, investors at the Rice Alliance Energy Technology Venture Forum name the 10 most-promising startups. Greentown's Climatetech Summit also culminates in a pitch event, where member companies can earn cash prizes.
Here's who won at two of the week's anchor events and competitions.
Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum
The 23nd annual event was held Thursday, Sept. 17, at Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. The most-promising companies were selected by industry experts and participating investors attending the event.
The 10 most-promising companies included:
- Australia-based Aquafortus, which has developed a non-thermal liquid to liquid desalination technology for resource recovery from wastewater brine
- Houston-based Focis AI, which converts industrial laser scans into a queryable digital twin of refineries and plants
- Houston-based ironlattice, a semiconductor manufacturing company
- Houston-based Licube, which has developed technology to produce ultra-high-purity lithium compounds for the fusion energy, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and high-performance solid-state battery sectors
- Houston-based Mars Materials, a clean chemical manufacturing business that is working to convert captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals
- Dallas-based MCatalysis, which has developed a suite of proprietary microwave-driven catalysts to produce high-quality, ready-to-use fuels compatible with existing infrastructure
- Oslo, Norway-based OTee, an automation machinery manufacturer
- Houston-based Pike Robotics, which deploys its Wall-Eye robot to inspect hazardous tanks without taking assets offline
- New Mexico-based Spiritus, a direct-air-capture (DAC) technology company
- San Francisco-based UptimeAI Inc., which develops AI reasoning agents for industrial operations teams
Stellai won the People's Choice Award. The Norwegian company develops AI products for the waste management industry.
The energy technology ventures selected to participate in the forum were named earlier this year. See the full list here, and read about last year's winners here.
Greentown Lab's Climatetech Summit
The annual summit was held Wednesday, Sept. 16, featured a number of Houston startups in its pitch competition and lighting pitch round. Judges included Dave Dreessen,, Jon Greene, Naval Preet Singh, Philip Llewellyn, Erin Madro, Justin Yeung, Jay Kim, Rawand Rasheed and Moji Karimi.
Pitch winners included:
- First place: Elementium Materials' CEO Matthew Dawson, winning a $10,000 cash prize sponsored by TotalEnergies plus another $10,000 in legal services sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company develops advanced battery electrolytes. It is a Greentown Boston member; though Dawson is based in Houston.
- Second place: Houston-based Solidec CEO and co-founder Ryan DuChanois, winning $5,000 in legal services sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company electrolyzes air, water and electricity into onsite hydrogen peroxide.
Lightening pitch winners included:
- First place: Montana-based MagDrive Technologies, winning a $1,000 cash prize sponsored by Energy Transition Ventures. The company develops magnetically actuated, zero-emission valve systems that eliminate fugitive emissions and improve reliability.
- Second place: Houston-based HEXASpec, winning a $500 cash prize sponsored by Foley Hoag. The company has created a new material to improve heat management for the semiconductor industry.
Read Greentown's recap of the summit here.
Houston Energy and Climate Week announced that the 2027 event will move to the spring, held April 4-10.
