and the winners are...

3 Houston energy startups score awards at annual innovation event

Three energy tech startups secured wins at the Houston Innovation Awards. Photos courtesy

Three energy tech startups scored wins this week at the annual Houston Innovation Awards.

The awards program — hosted by EnergyCapital's sister site, InnovationMap, and Houston Exponential — named its winners on November 8 at the Houston Innovation Awards. The program was established to honor the best and brightest companies and individuals from the city's innovation community.

Eighteen Houston energy startups were named finalists last month across categories, and three won awards.

Syzygy Plasmonics, a deep decarbonization company that builds chemical reactors designed to use light instead of combustion to produce valuable chemicals like hydrogen and sustainable fuels, won in the Hardtech Business category. The company was founded in 2018 based on technology out of Rice University by Trevor Best, co-founder and CEO, who accepted the award.

ALLY Energy, a tech platform that's helping energy companies and climate startups find, develop, and retain great talent, secured a win in the Social Impact Business category, a new category that's celebrating a business providing a solution that would enhance humanity or society in a significant way. Katie Mehnert, founder and CEO, accepted the award.

The big climatetech winner of the evening was Fervo Energy, a startup leveraging proven oil and gas drilling technology to deliver 24/7 carbon-free geothermal energy. Fervo, founded in 2017 by Tim Latimer before relocating to Houston, won in the Sustainability Business category.

Click here to view all of the awards winners from the evening.

Trending News

A View From HETI

Halliburton Labs has named its newest members. Photo courtesy of Halliburton

Three new companies have joined Halliburton Labs, the incubator for early-stage energy and hardtech startups run by Houston energy giant Halliburton.

Halliburton Labs provides the emerging companies with mentorship, industry connections, laboratory access and other resources as they work toward commercialization. The latest companies to join the incubator focus on battery materials, resource recovery and gas separation solutions to address some of the "key bottlenecks in the energy and industrial landscape," according to a news release.

The new members include:

  • Electroflow, a California-based company that produces lithium iron phosphate (LFP) cathode material from lithium brines through its proprietary process. LFPs are critical components in batteries used in electric vehicles, grid storage systems and industrial electrification, according to Halliburton Labs.
  • Osmoses, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that has developed a membrane platform to reduce the energy use, cost and emissions associated with gas separations used in natural gas, hydrogen, helium and other industrial applications
  • SiTration Inc., another Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company that has developed electro-extraction and filtration technologies to recover critical metals like copper directly from mining waste streams more quickly and affordably. Its process has completed successful pilot projects with Tier 1 mining companies in three continents.

"Affordable and reliable molecules are essential building blocks of the energy future. Each company brings a bold, technical solution to a complex industrial challenge. We look forward to helping them scale and deploy their technologies," Andres Cabada, Halliburton Labs managing director, added in the news release.

Halliburton Labs previously added four new members from around the world —Nandina REM, Noon Energy, Proof Energy and Tidal Metals—this spring. Alumni from the incubator include Houston-based companies like NanoTech Materials, which is developing insulation and fireproofing to reduce heat transfer in buildings and outdoor infrastructure; and SolvCor, which develops water additives to improve cooling for data centers and thermal storage.

With the addition of the three new members, the incubator currently supports nine early-stage companies.

Trending News