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Investors from Houston and Boston fuel Greentown with $4M commitment

next era

A mix of public and private investors have funded Greentown Labs. Photo via GreentownLabs.com

Greentown Labs, a climatetech incubator with locations in the Houston and Boston areas, has announced it has received funding from a mix of investors.

The $4 million in funding came from both of the Houston and Massachusetts locations. Houston investors included Bobby Tudor, CEO of Artemis Energy Partners and chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative; David Baldwin, co-founder of OpenMinds and TEX-E and partner at SCF Partners; and Rice University. Other investors included MassDevelopment and the City of Somerville.

“The challenges of the energy transition are immense, and the role played by technology incubators like Greentown Labs is essential,” Tudor says in a news release. “We believe this role, which is a partnership between academia, industry, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and governments, is the best way to get to effective, scalable solutions in a time frame that the urgency of the challenge requires. We need all hands on deck, and this partnership between Massachusetts and Texas can be a role model for others.”

According to Greentown, the funding will support its financial position and contribute to preparing the incubator for its next chapter of supporting its its leadership team prepare for Greentown’s next chapter supporting and growing its 575 startups.

“Greentown’s mission aligns closely with the Houston Energy Transition Initiative’s goal of accelerating global solutions to address the dual challenge of meeting growing energy demand globally while also significantly reducing CO2 emissions,” adds Steve Kean, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership.

With the announcement of the funding, Greentown named its board members, including Tudor, who will serve as Greentown Labs Board Chair. The other Houston-based board members are:

  • David Baldwin, co-founder of OpenMinds and TEX-E; partner atSCF Partners
  • Bob Harvey, former president and CEO of GHP; board member of TEX-E
  • Jane Stricker, senior vice president of energy transition and executive director of HETI

“With this new funding, Greentown is poised to expand its impact across its existing ecosystems and support even more climatetech startups,” adds Kevin Dutt, interim CEO of Greentown Labs. “We believe in the essential role entrepreneurship will play in the energy transition and we’re grateful for the support of our partners who share in that belief and our collective commitment to commercializing these technologies as quickly and efficiently as possible.”

According to Greentown, the incubator plans to announce its new CEO in the coming months.

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The GHP and HETI announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Argonne National Laboratory, a a federally-funded research and development facility in Illinois. Photo via Getty Images

HETI to partner with national research organization to promote energy transition innovation in Houston

team work

A new partnership between the Greater Houston Partnership and Argonne National Laboratory has been established to spur development of commercial-scale energy transition solutions.

The GHP and the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, or HETI, announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Argonne National Laboratory, a federally-funded research and development facility in Illinois. The lab is owned by the United States Department of Energy and run by UChicago Argonne LLC of the University of Chicago.

“The U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories have long been the backbone of research, development, and demonstration for the energy sector," Bobby Tudor, CEO of Artemis Energy Partners and Chair of HETI, says in a news release. "The Partnership and HETI, working with our industry members, business community and top research and academic institutions, in collaboration with Argonne, will work across our energy innovation ecosystem to drive this critical effort for our region.”

The partnership, announced at HETI House at CERAWeek by S&P Global, is intended to provide resources and collaboration opportunities between Houston's energy innovation ecosystem — from corporates to startups — to "accelerate the translation, evaluation and pre-commercialization of breakthrough carbon reduction technologies," per the news release.

“A decarbonization center of excellence in Houston is the missing link in the region’s coordinated approach to advancing critical energy transition technologies needed to mitigate the risks associated with climate change, while also promoting economic growth and job creation for the region,” Tudor continues.

Established in 1946, Argonne works with universities, industry, and other national laboratories on large, collaborative projects that are expected to make a big impact on the energy transition.

“Partnerships are essential to realizing net zero goals,” Argonne Director Paul Kearns adds. “We are pleased to extend DOE national laboratory expertise and work with HETI to focus the region’s considerable energy and industrial assets, infrastructure, and talent on broad commercial deployment of needed technologies.”

An Austin-based energy software company just scored funding from Houston investors. Photo via Getty Images

Houston VCs back energy software startup in $3.25M seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based investment firm Goose Capital led a $3.25 million round of seed funding revealed recently by Austin-based cleantech software company P6 Technologies.

Other participants in the round are Houston-based investment firms Artemis Energy Partners, Tupper Lake Partners, and Veritec Ventures. The seed round represents the first outside funding for P6, which maintains an office in Houston.

In conjunction with the seed funding:

  • Artemis founder and CEO Bobby Tudor has joined P6’s board of directors. He is an investor in Goose Capital.
  • Paal Kibsgaard, managing partner of Veritec, also has joined the P6 board. Kibsgaard is former chairman and CEO of Houston-based oilfield services company Schlumberger, which now does business as SLB.

Joe Berti, CEO of P6, says Kibsgaard’s “unparalleled experience” will benefit his company.

“Veritec’s strategic vision and active support of energy transition solutions align perfectly with our goals, and I am confident their contribution will be instrumental in shaping our future success,” Berti says in a news release.

Berti is former chief product officer of IBM’s sustainability software unit.

P6, founded in 2022, sells enterprise software to businesses in the energy, transportation fuel, and petrochemical sectors. The startup’s software for product lifecycle assessment enables measurement of the product-level intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as energy companies try to achieve sustainability goals.

Tudor applauds P6 for helping fossil fuel-anchored companies reduce GHG emissions.

“Energy is the sector that needs a solution like P6 the most,” says Tudor. “P6 has the right approach and is going to make a step-change improvement to how product-level carbon intensity and GHG emissions are tracked today.”

Bobby Tudor has joined the board of an energy tech company. Photo via Houston.org

Houston energy transition leader joins California company's board with investment

seat at the table

A Houston business leader has taken a seat at the table of a San Francisco-based tech company.

Puloli, an IoT solutions-as-a-service company has announced an investment from, Artemis Energy Partners, a Houston group founded by Bobby Tudor. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

With the transaction, Tudor joins Puloli's board of directors, bringing expertise from a storied career in energy transition from his roles at Tudor Pickering Holt & Co. and the Greater Houston Partnership.

"Bobby brings a tremendous amount of credibility and energy industry insight to Puloli and complements what Jodi Jahic and Aligned Partners bring to Puloli," Kethees Ketheesan, CEO of Puloli, says in a news release. "Bobby's endorsement of Puloli solution will be a big boost in accelerating our growth."

The investment from Artemis Energy Partners will be used to support research and development, operations, and more at Puloli, which recently launched a continuous methane monitoring service for energy producers. The funding will also support this new technology, called the Paradigm M-Series, as it rolls out across North America.

"I'm very pleased and excited to be a part of the Puloli team," Tudor says in the release. "The energy industry is hungry for solutions I'm confident Puloli can provide. Kethees and his team are poised to become a leader in the methane detection and measurement space, and I look forward to supporting that growth opportunity."

Tudor was the 2020 chair of the GHP and currently serves as the chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, or HETI. He founded Artemis Energy Partners in 2017 after his firm TPH merged with Perella Weinberg Partners in 2016.

Students from the 2023 cohort of The Energy Project showcased their innovations at the Puranik Foundation Lotus Innovation Awards. Photo courtesy of Jacob Power Photography

Sustainability-focused philanthropy recognizes student innovations, local leaders

EMPOWERING THE TRANSITION

From the moment of arrival at the Puranik Foundation Lotus Innovation Awards, attendees engaged in an experience that stimulated the senses and excited the mind – a precise reflection of the foundation’s approach to a holistic education for future innovators.

The event, held last week at the Post Oak Hotel in Uptown, honored Houston leaders supporting the next generation of aspiring entrepreneurs and celebrated the dedication of high school students dreaming sustainability solutions into reality.

“[These students] have the potential to reach innovative places that none of us can think of because we are so set in our ways,“ says Bhakti Puranik, executive director of Puranik Foundation, just steps from where the students showcased their prototypes to secure the gala’s Fan Favorite award. “They are open-minded and creative and constantly inspired by the community that surrounds us.”

The Energy Project, launched in 2020 by the foundation, supports young minds tackling environmental challenges for sustainable development across five sectors: alternative power generation, sustainable consumption, waste management, urban design, and water sustainability.

Multiple small student teams from across the country met for design thinking lessons before creating prototypes of their own solutions at TXRX Labs. The foundation’s primary sponsor, Worldwide Oilfield Machine, provided mentors and resources to the 25 students in this year’s cohort alongside Rice University.

For the winning team, Refoam Maine, the application of mushroom mycelium in lieu of plastic for floating buoys came from the optimistic minds of Maggie Blood, Olivia Huard, Tula Bradley Prindiville, and Laura Riordan, students of Camden Hills Regional High School near Rockport, Maine.

A close-knit community, Camden Hills has collectively seen thousands of orphaned buoys pile up against their docks and beaches for years. The team plans to use their Lotus Innovation Award grant of $15,000 to get their floats in the water, and is actively working with boatyards, aquaculture farmers, and others to bring that vision to reality this summer.

Cyrus Golshan, Nathaniel Lemon, and Alexander Kristof took home the Fan Favorite Award for their solution Piezot, which harnesses energy from revolutionary piezoelectric tiles that convert pressure into energy and electricity.

The team studies at the Energy Institute High School in Houston and envisions an energy ecosystem that doesn’t rely so heavily on natural forces, but rather on human movement as a means to generate power. Placement of the tiles in high-traffic areas like airports, schools, and shopping centers could mean an exponential growth in power supply created simply by the many feet that pass through these areas every day.

Bobby Tudor, CEO and founder of Artemis Energy Partners, and recipient of the Sustainability Lotus Award from Puranik Foundation, attributes the success of the program to the convergence of expertise, a collaborative ecosystem, and global connectivity available from Houston as part of the burgeoning Energy Transition industry.

“We are the energy capital of the world because we are the intellectual capital of energy,“ says Tudor. “The knowledge, the engineering, the expertise, sits here in a more concentrated way than it sits anywhere else in the world. It is that intellectual capital that will pave the way for us to continue to be the energy capital of the world a decade from now, two decades from now, and five decades from now.”

Additionally, Paula Harris, senior vice president of the Houston Astros Community Affairs and Executive Director for the Astros Foundation, accepted the Education Lotus Award for her continued commitment to advancing STEM education across underserved communities.

For his positive impact on the mental well-being of students, Bradley H. Smith, Ph.D., Professor of Psychological, Health, and Learning Services at the University of Houston School of Psychology, Puranik Foundation honored him with Mindfulness Lotus Award.

Applications for The Energy Project are due by 1 November each fall. In addition to the team competition, next year’s cohort includes an immersive experience in India for holistic learning and leadership development.

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Houston-area logistics co. breaks ground on recycling center tied to circularity hub

coming soon

TALKE USA Inc., a Houston-area arm of German logistics company TALKE, broke ground on its new Recycling Support Center in Mont Belvieu Aug. 1.

The facility will process post-consumer plastic materials, which will then be further processed at Cyclyx's new Houston-based Circularity Center, a first-of-its-kind plastic waste sorting and processing facility that was developed through a joint venture between Cyclix, ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell.

The materials will ultimately be converted into recycling feedstock.

“We’re proud to break ground on a facility that reflects our long-term vision for sustainable growth,” Richard Heath, CEO and president of TALKE USA Inc., said in a news release. “This groundbreaking marks an important milestone for our team, our customers, and the Mont Belvieu community.”

The new facility was partially funded by Chambers County, according to the release. The Baytown Sun reports that the county put $1 million towards the construction of the project, which brings advanced recycling and mechanical recycling to the area.

TALKE USA said it plans to share more about the new facility and its impact in the future.

Meanwhile, the Houston-based Cyclyx Circularity Center (CCC1) is slated to open this year and is expected to produce 300 million pounds of custom-formulated feedstock annually. A second circularity center, CCC2, is expected to start up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the second half of 2026. Read more here.

8 Houston energy giants top global corporate startup index for 2025

Global Group

Eight major players in Houston’s energy industry rank among the world’s top 20 energy companies for corporate startup activity.

The inaugural Corporate Startup Activity Index 2025, published by StartupBlink, ranks global corporations by industry. The eight Houston-area employers fall into the index’s energy and environment category.

Researchers from StartupBlink, an innovation research platform, scored more than 370 companies based on three factors: corporate involvement in startup activity, startup success and ecosystem integration.

The eight Houston-area energy employers that landed in the energy and environment category’s top 20 are:

  • No. 3 BP. Score: 13.547. U.S. headquarters in Houston.
  • No. 5 Saudi Aramco. Score: 7.405. Americas headquarters in Houston.
  • No. 7 Eni. Score: 6.255. Headquarters of Eni U.S. Operating Co. in Houston.
  • No. 8 Shell. Score: 6.217. U.S. headquarters in Houston.
  • No. 11 Occidental Petroleum. Score: 5.347. Global headquarters in Houston.
  • No. 15 Engie. Score: 3.352. North American headquarters in Houston.
  • No. 17 Repsol. Score: 2.980. U.S. headquarters for oil and gas operations in The Woodlands.
  • No. 19 Chevron. Score: 2.017. Global headquarters in Houston.

“Building a startup is hard, and navigating corporate innovation can be just as complex. This ranking is a step toward making the connection between startups and corporations more transparent, enabling startups and corporations to collaborate more effectively for mutual success,” said Eli David Rokah, CEO of StartupBlink.

Salesforce topped the global index with a score of 380.090, followed by Intel, Google, Qualcomm, and Comcast.

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This article originally appeared on InnovationMap.com.

Houston nonprofit launches new energy education platform

energy ed

The Energy Education Foundation, a Houston-based nonprofit, will roll out a new app-based education platform just in time for back-to-school season.

Starting this fall, EEF will offer its new EnergyXP platform to students in middle schools and through community and education events across the country. The STEM-focused platform aims to boost exposure to oil and gas concepts and career paths, according to a release from the non-profit.

EnergyXP represents a fully redesigned, interactive version of the foundation's former Mobile Energy Learning Units, which now feature upgraded technology, enhanced curricula and app integration.

“EnergyXP marks the most recent development in our educational initiatives. We aim to inspire students nationwide to explore real-world energy concepts and careers,” Kristen Barley, executive director of the Energy Education Foundation, said in the release. “Our collaborative approach involves strong partnerships with educators, industry experts and local organizations to ensure that our programs are responsive to community needs. By prioritizing equitable access to quality STEM education, we can help build a more inclusive, future-ready energy workforce.”

The new platform offers 16 hands-on and digital STEM activities that introduce a variety of energy concepts through real-world applications while "showcasing the relevance of energy in everyday life," according to the release.

EEF will host two virtual sneak peeks of the platform on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8. Register here.

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