Greentown Labs announces newest startups to join Houston climatetech incubator

green team

Five companies have joined Greentown Labs Houston, specializing in various "green" applications, from converting plastic waste into sustainable materials to developing energy-storage solutions. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

Greentown Labs announced that it added five startups to its Houston community in Q1 of 2025.

The companies are among a group of 19 that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in the same time period. The companies that joined the Houston-based lab specialize in a number of "green" applications, from converting plastic waste into sustainable materials to developing energy-storage solutions.

The new Houston members include:

Concept Loop, a project of Pakistan-based Innova8e Inc., aims to repurpose post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste into sustainable building materials.
GeoFuels, a Sugar Land-based company that produces hydrogen by using baseload geothermal power and methane pyrolysis.
PLASENE, a Houston-based company with an innovative platform that converts plastic waste into liquid fuel and low-carbon hydrogen through its proprietary catalysts and modular, scalable, pre-engineered units platform. The company was named to Greentown's ACCEL Year 3 cohort earlier this year.
RepAir Carbon, an Israeli company with a fully electric, zero-heat carbon-removal technology that consumes minimal energy, operates without liquids or solvents, and produces no hazardous materials or waste.
RotorVault from Pasadena, California, is commercializing energy-storage and load-following solutions that are containerized, modular, and field-deployable systems built on flywheel technology.

Fourteen other companies will join Greentown Boston's incubator. See the full list here.

PLASENE and five other new members—Thola, Respire Energy, Andros Innovations, FAST Metals and Tato Labs—join Greentown Labs through its most recent Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program, or ACCEL, cohort. ACCEL, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, announced its third cohort last month.

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Greentown Labs and Evonik have launched the Greentown Go Make 2025 accelerator to support startups developing sustainable technologies for the personal care industry. Photo via Evonik.us

Greentown Labs, Evonik launch accelerator to boost sustainability in personal care products

apply now

Greentown Labs and its corporate partner, Germany-based chemicals company Evonik, are calling for submissions to a new program geared at accelerating more sustainable personal care products.

The Greentown Go Make 2025 accelerator, which is based in both Greentown's Houston and Boston-area locations and open to companies from around the world, as launched applications now through January 23.

"Designed to accelerate startup-corporate partnerships to advance climatetech, this Greentown Go program is focused on increasing sustainability within the personal-care industry through the development, introduction, and commercialization of technologies that reduce products’ manufacturing-related emissions and end-of-life environmental impact," reads a news release from Greentown.

"More specifically, Go Make 2025 is interested in biodegradable polymers and sustainable specialty chemicals for personal care. Further details on the technology areas of interest can be found in the request for applications."

The selected companies will have access to Greentown's facilities and receive mentorship, networking opportunities, educational workshops, and structured programming. The startups will also have partnership opportunities with the program's corporate partner Evonik.

“The Greentown Go program represents an exciting opportunity for startups to showcase their groundbreaking solutions in sustainable chemistry,” Anil Saxena, vice president of RD&I at Evonik, says in the release. “At Evonik, innovation and sustainability are not just buzzwords; they are fundamental to our strategic growth. We are eager to identify and collaborate with companies that share our commitment to creating a more sustainable future.”

The global personal care market — which includes products across hygiene, cosmetics and beautification, cleaning, and grooming — represents 0.5 to 1.5 percent of global greenhouse-gas emissions, per Greentown's release. Evonik announced its sustainability-focused game plan in September, focusing on bio-based solutions, the energy transition, and the circular economy.

“The building blocks of the personal-care industry are ripe for climatetech innovation, and there’s no better partner for harnessing this opportunity than Evonik, a global leader in specialty chemicals,” adds Aisling Carlson, senior vice president of partnerships at Greentown. “Greentown Go has a strong track record of fostering meaningful startup-corporate partnerships, and we look forward to working with Evonik and a set of groundbreaking entrepreneurs in this program.”

Ali Mostafavi, founder of Resilitix.AI, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss how he pivoted to provide important data amid Hurricane Beryl. Photo via tamu.edu

Why this entrepreneur believes Houston should lead resilience technology alongside the energy transition

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When it comes to developing resilience technology, Houston startup founder Ali Mostafavi knows he's in the right place.

Mostafavi, a civil and environmental engineering professor at Texas A&M University, co-founded Resilitix.AI two years ago, and with the help of his lab at A&M, has created a platform that brings publicly available data into AI algorithms to provide its partners near-real time information in storm settings.

"We are very excited that our company is Houston based," he says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "We should not be just ground zero of disasters. We have to also be ground zero for solutions as well. I believe Houston should be the hub for resilience tech innovation as it is for energy transition.

"I think energy transition, climatetech, energy tech, and disaster tech go hand in hand," Mostafavi continues. "I feel that we are in the right place."

Earlier this month, Mostafavi got an unexpected chance to pilot his company's data-backed and artificial intelligence-powered platform — all while weathering one of Houston's most impactful storms.

As Hurricane Beryl came ashore with Houston on its path, Mostafavi says he had the opportunity to both test his technology and provide valuable information to his community during the storm.

"We were in the process of fine tuning some of our methods and algorithms behind our technology," Mostafavi says. "When disasters happen, you go to activation mode. We put our technology development and R&D efforts on hold and try to test our technology in an operational setting."

The platform provides its partners — right now, those include local and state organizations and emergency response teams — information on evacuation reports, street flooding, and even damage sustained based on satellite imagery. Mostafavi says that during Beryl, users were wondering how citizens were faring amid rising temperatures and power outages. The Resilitix team quickly pivoted to apply algorithms to hospital data to see which neighborhoods were experiencing high volumes of patients.

"We had the ability to innovate on the spot," Mostafavi says, adding that his own lack of power and internet was an additional challenge for the company. "When an event happens, we start receiving requests and questions. ... We had to be agile and adapt our methods to be responsive. Then at the same time, because we haven't tested it, we have to verify that we are confident (in the information we provide)."

On the episode, Mostafavi shares how Hurricane Harvey — which occurred shortly after Mostafavi moved to Houston — inspired the foundation of Resilitix, and he also explains how he plans to grow and scale the business.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Nine companies have joined Greentown Houston. Photo via Getty Images

Greentown Labs shares updates on newest climatetech members

all aboard

Greentown Labs announced that it added nine climatetech start-ups in Q2 of this year.

The new members of the incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, work in a variety of fields from electricity to manufacturing and agriculture.

The companies in the Houston location include:

GS Vortex Systems, a Portland-based company that focuses on cost reduction and flow assurance in piping systems. Its hydrodynamic flow technology allows for higher flow through existing pipes that increases productivity and reduces emissions. It’s based in Houston and Tampa.
BiaTech Corporation, applies AI and machine learning fto natural resource infrastructure immersion to help energy and utilities produce more with lower risks of production disruptions
InfraNergy, a Florida-based clean energy infrastructure provider that develops clean energy projects via virtual power plants to reduce power costs and drive decarbonization
Neuralix, a Dallas-based startup that offers a suite of rapid, customizable templates for data lifecycle for the energy and manufacturing sectors
Reverse Energy Solutions, a Chicago-based startup that provides cost-effective solar panel recycling through streamlined collection and transportation processes
Terralytiq, which has developed an enterprise software platform for industrial supply chains, that helps reduce supply chain costs and carbon. It’s headquartered in Austin.
EnergyGigs, a talent and freelance platform for the energy industry based in Houston
Metalex, a commodity trading firm with operations in Africa that delivers carbon-neutral critical metals that are processed in a decarbonized supply chain
TDS Select, which has developed a modular, scalable water-treatment technology to desalinate brackish water using low-energy

According to Greentown, another 11 startups joined the nonprofit's Boston incubator.

Greentown Labs, with the Browning the Green Space, named the second cohort for the Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program, or ACCEL, in the spring. The accelerator, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, launched in 2022.

It also named 6 energy tech startups to Shell-backed accelerator in October.

Earlier this month the climatetech incubator added three new members to its board of directors. This came after CEO and President Kevin Knobloch announced he would be stepping down at the end of July. Kevin Dutt was recently named interim CEO of the organization.

According to a new report, Houston attracted the fifth most climatetech funding last year in the United States. Photo via Getty Images

With $200M raised last year, Houston cleans up on new report tracking climatetech funding

We're No. 5

Climatech funding for Houston-area startups crept toward the $200 million mark in 2023 — putting it ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and several other major metro areas and making it a standout among U.S. climatech hubs.

Last year, the Houston area collected $199.94 million in climatech funding across 14 deals, according to PitchBook data analyzed by Revolution Growth, a venture capital firm based in Washington, D.C.

“With its deep-rooted energy sector, Houston is an attractive HQ for companies innovating within renewable energy, carbon capture, and emissions reduction,” Revolution says. “Partnerships with oil and gas companies also provide unique collaboration opportunities for climate tech startups, accelerating market adoption and helping companies achieve scale quickly.”

Los Angeles led the climatech funding list at $544.62 million, followed by No. 2 Denver, No. 3 D.C., No. 4 Seattle, and No. 5 Houston. In 12th place was Dallas-Fort Worth ($30.55 million). Austin claimed the No. 15 spot ($13.38 million).

“While traditional coastal tech hubs still hold considerable influence, dozens of [climatech] clusters are emerging between them,” says Revolution.

In its new report on America’s top climatech hubs, Revolution cites three Houston startups to watch:

Buildforce, a platform for workers in the electrical trades
Fervo Energy, a supplier of carbon-free energy through geothermal projects
Solugen, a developer of bio-based chemicals that replace traditional petroleum-based products

Now is the time for your tech company to become a climate company, says this Houston expert. Photo via Getty Images

Houston energy startup CEO calls for tech players to join the climate fight

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In 2022, over 100,000 workers were laid off from major technology companies in an economic slowdown, leaving many people wondering what the future holds. There’s a bright spot, however. These closed doors create an opening for individuals to begin a new career in climate tech, especially as these former tech employees possess skills needed to find and develop novel ways to innovate.

The story of a techie turning to climate isn’t new by any means. For example, Alex Roetter was the former head of engineering at Twitter but later pivoted to climate tech, becoming a managing director and general partner of Moxxie Ventures and the founder of Terraset, a nonprofit focused on funding high-quality carbon removal. Raj Kapoor followed a similar path as he now serves as the co-founder and managing partner of Climactic, a venture capital firm solving climate-related issues using technology, after working as Lyft’s chief strategy officer.

What’s unique now is that the climate tech industry is ready for it – public and private companies have made climate pledges that need industry-disrupting tech solutions, and there is federal, state, and private funding that are backing these solutions up.

When I started out in the energy industry nearly a dozen years ago, there was no such thing as a career in climate tech. Shortly after the 2008 financial crisis, I found a job at a firm backed by smart investors who saw through the noise and realized renewable energy investments are some of the most stable and predictable ways to earn financial returns. Now that Wall Street recognizes investments in climate-related industries as the best way to achieve their long term financial obligations, we’ve seen nearly every company realize they don’t have an economic future unless they also focus on climate results.

We used to say, “every company will become a tech company.” We’re now moving towards a world where “every company is a climate company.” And that is creating opportunities throughout the economy for people to contribute their skills and support their families while building something that actually matters.

Why climate tech is a safe bet

Taking a career twist into climate tech is a safe bet for a few reasons. The first is, unfortunately and obviously, the fact that climate change is getting worse. Between extreme weather events becoming more frequent around the world and the past eight years becoming the hottest on record, there is a huge need for climate mitigation solutions in every sector. What’s more, with the Earth’s population hitting eight billion, we will need to scale technology that addresses challenges like grid instability and food security, as governments try to balance resources. In fact, the Biden-Harris Administration announced $13B of programs to expand the U.S.’s power grid.

To tackle climate change, federal, state, and private sector capital investment in climate tech is at an all time high. As leaders pledge to reach net zero by 2050, investments and commitments to accelerate solutions to decarbonize the planet and make it more sustainable are being prioritized. Last year, there was a whopping $26.8 billion poured into climate tech. In five years, the climate tech market is estimated to near $1.4 trillion and with new energy plans in the Inflation Reduction Act announced earlier this year, investors are heavily influenced in funding the climate tech space.

An easier career shift

A switch to climate tech can be daunting, but it’s not just hard sciences like chemistry and materials engineering. It’s software engineers, social media savvants, and sales specialists. We have employees who have worked at places such as Google and Square come and support us with building our backend tech stack and consumer app. One of our tech leaders is a famous author, having written several books about coding in Django.

We’ve also recently heard about the “great resignation” over the past couple of years, but I think that framing is wrong. I think it's a “great reconsideration”. The reality is, for most of us on a given day, we spend more of our waking hours at work than any other activity. People need purpose — lack of purpose is the biggest reason for burnout. In fact not only have we not been impacted by the “great resignation” that many other firms have been, but we’ve actually received over tens of thousands of applications for our open roles in the past year alone. The career pivot to something meaningful is happening, and it’s happening today.

For example, one of our data engineers graduated from MIT and used to work in Houston as a chemical engineer — after some reskilling, she’s now a data engineer for our Kraken Technologies platform. Another one of our colleagues worked in the traditional marketing space and has transitioned over to climate tech to lead our global marketing. The climate industry needs as many out-of-the-box people as possible to draw new perspectives for reaching climate goals and getting us closer to a clean future.

Not sure where to start? There are several resources dedicated to onboarding people into the climate tech world. Some of my favorite are:

Climatebase: this platform is essentially a LinkedIn for climate tech — people can discover climate jobs and learn how they can transition to the space.
Climate Change Careers: founded in 2020, this site features job postings, educational opportunities, and information about switching to a climate-focused career.
Climate Draft: a member supported coalition comprising climate tech startups and venture capitalists who aim to bring more top talent, investment and commercial opportunities to the table.
ClimatEU: a leading resource for climate jobs and employers in Europe consisting of job postings, and opportunities for companies to find additional investment opportunities.
Climate People: a platform dedicated to mobilizing a workforce transition towards climate careers.

My inbox is also always open to people interested in joining the energy end of the world — whether it’s to talk about different openings at Octopus Energy, discuss how your expertise transfers to climate tech, or just to say hello.

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Michael Lee is the CEO of London-headquartered Octopus Energy. He is based in the company's US headquarters in Houston. This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Amazon's EV robotaxi service Zook is set to arrive in Houston

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Amazon-owned electric robotaxi ride-hailing service Zoox is zooming into Houston in September.

Initially, self-driving retrofitted SUVs with safety drivers on board will serve downtown Houston, centrally located tourist hotspots, and certain residential neighborhoods. The SUVs will test Houston roads before Zoox rolls out autonomous robotaxis, the company says.

Zoox takes Houston for a test drive

At the outset, Zoox says, a limited number of vehicles will be driven by people to gather data about Houston roads.

“This helps create a detailed picture of each street, from road geometry to traffic lights,” the company says. “Once we have mapped out an area, we will test autonomous driving capabilities. Safety and operational readiness govern the pace of our rollout.”

Zoox says its robotaxi differs from vehicles operated by other ride-hailing services.

The all-electric robotaxi “is purpose-built for autonomous ride-hailing and designed for riders from day one,” the company says. “It has no traditional driving controls and instead has carriage-style seating, sliding glass doors, and features that let the rider personalize their journey.”

To help manage the fleet, Zoox plans to open a depot in Houston for vehicle charging and maintenance, a representative says via email.

Along with Houston, Zoox is launching this month in San Diego. The ride-hailing service already operates in Austin, Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.

Zoox breaks into “sprawling” Houston market

Zoox describes Houston as its “most sprawling market to date.”

“Driving here means navigating complex service-road networks, unique merging scenarios, and challenging environmental conditions, including severe heat, heavy rain, and urban flooding,” the company says. “It’s a rigorous test of our technology across geography and terrain.”

Zoox will join two other autonomous ride-hailing services in Houston:

Waymo began rolling in Houston in February. Alphabet, the parent company of Google, owns Waymo.
Electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla began offering robotaxi services earlier this year.

A third Zoox competitor is arriving within the next year. A partnership comprising rideshare provider Uber, EV manufacturer Lucid, and autonomous technology company Nuro plans to launch a robotaxi service in Houston by mid-2027.

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

San Antonio company breaks ground on 347MW solar project outside of Houston

coming soon

Crews have broken ground on the forthcoming 347-megawatt direct-current SunRoper Solar project in Wharton County, Texas, that will add capacity to the ERCOT grid.

The solar project, which is slated to begin operations in December 2027, will provide electricity to an undisclosed Fortune 100 company under a long-term power purchase agreement, according to a news release.

San Antonio’s OCI Energy and Israel's Arava Power are developing the project. It's being financed by ING Capital and constructed by Louisiana-based WHC Inc. The project received $394 million in construction financing in February.

"SunRoper demonstrates how strategic partnerships can help meet Texas' growing demand for electricity through investments in critical energy infrastructure," Sabah Bayatli, president of OCI Energy, said in the release.

Project partners, landowners and company executives attended a groundbreaking event for SunRoper on Sept. 1 at the site outside of the Houston metro area. The companies say they are advancing this energy project to strengthen grid reliability and to help deliver affordable power to one of the highest-demand areas in the state.

“WHC is proud to serve as EPC contractor on the SunRoper Solar project, bringing our construction expertise to bear on a facility that will deliver meaningful power to the Houston region,” Randel Badeaux, president of power North America for WHC, added in the news release. “This groundbreaking reflects months of careful planning and coordination with OCI Energy, Arava Power and our project partners, and we look forward to executing a safe, high-quality build through to completion in 2027.”

OCI Energy currently operates several utility-scale solar and battery energy storage system projects outside of the San Antonio area, and has five other projects under construction outside of San Antonio and Waco, with more than 30 under development in Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Colorado and Alberta, Canada. The company also has existing projects in New Jersey and Georgia.

In $2 billion deal, NVIDIA takes 20% stake in Woodlands-based Lancium

power play

With an initial investment of $2 billion, AI chip manufacturer NVIDIA just acquired a 20 percent stake in The Woodlands-based Lancium, which develops large-scale campuses that combine AI data centers and onsite power supplies.

Lancium recently announced the investment but didn’t disclose the dollar amount. The Information news website reported NVIDIA’s investment totaled $2 billion, with the possibility of an additional $1 billion if Lancium achieves certain milestones.

Dealroom.co calls NVIDIA’s investment a “form of supply-chain insurance.”

NVIDIA “is gaining exposure to the scarce physical assets that determine whether its chips can be deployed,” Dealroom.co says. “The move makes Nvidia look less like a pure chip company and more like an allocator of infrastructure capacity.”

Investment precedes possible IPO in 2027

Thanks to NVIDIA’s cash infusion, Lancium and its portfolio of land and power connections carry an enterprise value of about $10 billion, according to The Information.

The investment should enable Lancium to expand as it explores a potential IPO next year, The Information reported.

Neither Lancium nor NVIDIA is responding to requests for comment about the deal.

Lancium’s marquee project is a 1,000-acre data center and power generation campus in West Texas for the $500 billion Stargate initiative. Stargate, a joint venture comprising MGX, OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, is building data centers equipped to handle AI-level workloads.

“Epicenter of energy and AI infrastructure”

Founded in 2017, Lancium has 4 gigawatts of leased capacity and a more than 15-gigawatt development pipeline. In 2024, Blackstone Energy Transition Partners invested about $500 million in Lancium, giving Blackstone a roughly 50 percent stake.

“This partnership with NVIDIA is a strong testament to Lancium’s position at the epicenter of energy and AI infrastructure … . We look forward to continuing to partner with these leading companies to help power the next generation of AI innovation,” Bilal Khan, senior managing director at Blackstone, said in a release.

Through the NVIDIA partnership, Lancium’s data center and power generation campuses will use the tech company’s “AI factory” platform, including software, computing, and networking capabilities. This will give NVIDIA customers and partners access to power capacity that supports heavy AI workloads.

“We have spent years assembling the power, the land, and the infrastructure expertise needed to deliver AI data center capacity at a scale the world has never seen,” Michael McNamara, co-founder and CEO of Lancium, said in the release.

“Partnering with NVIDIA — the definitive technology platform for AI computing — ensures that every campus in our portfolio will be deployed with the industry’s most advanced technology and that NVIDIA’s customers will have access to the capacity they need to compete and lead in the AI era.”

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