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Greentown launches 3rd round of collaborative accelerator for energy tech founders of color

browning the green space

A handful of startups will be selected for the third year of the ACCEL program put on by Greentown Labs and Browning the Green Space. Photo via greentownlabs.com

For the third year, Greentown Labs and Browning the Green Space have opened applications for ACCEL, a climatetech accelerator designed to bolster BIPOC-led companies.

The program, which is a year-long commitment providing opportunities across funding, networking connections, resources, and more, has applications open until January 7. Each selected company will receive non-dilutive grant funding up to $25,000, trainings from VentureWell, a desk and membership at Greentown Houston or Boston locations, a BGS membership, and more.

A handful of startups will be selected for the program, which is looking for companies at the two to four Technology Readiness Level (TRL) stage with a technology solution across agriculture, buildings, electricity, manufacturing, resiliency and adaptation, and transportation sectors.

“ACCEL has been amazing," Chidalu Onyenso, founder of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based EarthBond, a member of the 2022 cohort, writes on the website. "I’ve really enjoyed the membership and programming. I think it’s fantastic—if I met another Black or Brown founder focused on climatetech, I’d tell them to apply to this program, 100 percent.”

Earlier this year, the program — which is supported by the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center,Microsoft's Climate Innovation Fund, Equinor, Barr Foundation — named seven companies to its second cohort and six to its inaugural batch in 2022. The 13 companies across two cohorts so far have received $325,000 in grant funding from the program.

"These BIPOC-led startups are developing climate technologies that will lead us to a more equitable and sustainable future," MassCEC CEO Dr. Emily Reichert, the former CEO of Greentown, said of the second cohort in a news release. "We want ALL climatetech innovators and entrepreneurs to thrive here in Massachusetts. We are proud to support the ACCEL accelerator, created and led by Greentown Labs and Browning the Green Space. The ACCEL program is helping us build a more diverse innovation ecosystem by breaking down barriers and expanding opportunities."

Interested and qualifying companies can apply online.

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Woodside Energy has committed $12.5 million to a new partnership with Rice University. Photo via Instagram/WoodsideEnergy

Woodside Energy backs $12.5M clean energy accelerator for new technologies

howdy, partner

A global Australian energy company with its international operations in Houston has backed a new climatetech accelerator in partnership with Rice University.

Woodside Energy, headquartered in Australia with its global operations in Houston following its 2022 acquisition of BHP Group, has committed $12.5 million over the next five years to create the Woodside Rice Decarbonization Accelerator.

"The goal of the accelerator is to fast track the commercialization of innovative decarbonization technologies created in Rice labs," Rice University President Reginald DesRoches says to a crowd at the Ion at the initiative's announcement. "These technologies have the potential to make better batteries, transitistors, and other critical materials for energy technologies. In addition, the accelerator will work on manufacturing these high-value products from captured and converted carbon dioxide and methane."

"The Woodside Rice Decarbonization Accelerator will build on the work that Rice has been doing in advanced materials, energy, energy transition, and climate for many years. More than 20 percent of our faculty do some related work to energy and climate," he continues. "Harnessing their efforts alongside an esteemed partner like Woodside Energy is an exciting step that will undoubtedly have an impact far and wide."

Rice University announced the new climate tech initiative backed by Woodside Energy this week. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Woodside, which has over 800 employees based in Houston, has been a partner at the Ion since last spring. Daniel Kalms, Woodside Energy's CTO and executive vice president, explains that the new initiative falls in line with the three goals of Woodside's climate strategy, which includes keeping up with global energy demand, creating value, and conducting its business sustainably. The company has committed a total of $5 billion to new energy by 2030, Kalms says.

"We know that the world needs energy that is more affordable, sustainable, and secure to support the energy transition — and we want to provide that energy. Energy that is affordable, sustainable, and secure requires innovation and the application of new technology. That's what this is about," he says.

"Of course collaboration will be the key," Kalms continues. "By working with researchers, entrepreneurs, leading experts and parallel industries, we can combine our capability to solve collective challenges and create shared opportunities. That's why we are excited to be partnering with Rice."

The accelerator will be run by Paul Cherukuri, vice president of innovation at Rice University, and Aditya Mohite, associate professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and Materials Science and Nanoengineering. Additional Rice professors will be involved as well, Cherukuri says.

"Success for us will not be papers, it will be products," Cherukuri says of what Woodside wants from the partnership. "We picked faculty at Rice in particular who were interested in taking on this charge, and they were all faculty who created companies."

Last fall, Rice announced a grant and venture initiative to accelerate innovation from Rice in the biotech space.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Houston energy-focused AI platform raises $5M in Mercury-led seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

CenterPoint reports progress on grid improvements ahead of 2025 hurricane season

grid resilience

As part of an ongoing process to make Houston better prepared for climate disasters, CenterPoint Energy announced its latest progress update on the second phase of the Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI).

CenterPoint reported that it has completed 70 percent of its resiliency work and all GHRI-related actions are expected to be complete before the official start of the 2025 hurricane season.

"Our entire CenterPoint Houston Electric team is focused on completing this historic suite of grid resiliency actions before the start of hurricane season,” Darin Carroll, Senior Vice President of CenterPoint's Electric Business, said in a news release. “That is our goal, and we will achieve it. To date, we have made significant progress as part of this historic effort.”

CenterPoint’s resiliency solutions include clearing higher-risk vegetation across thousands of miles of power lines, adding thousands more automation devices capable of self-healing, installing thousands of storm-resistant poles, and undergrounding hundreds of miles of power lines.

CenterPoint's GHRI efforts, which entered a second phase in September 2024, aim to improve overall grid resiliency and reliability and are estimated to reduce outages for customers by more than 125 million minutes annually, according to the company. It has undergrounded nearly 350 miles of power lines, about 85 percent of the way toward its target of 400 miles, which will help improve resiliency and reduce the risk of outages. CenterPoint also aims to install the first of 100 new local weather monitoring stations by June 1.

In March, CenterPoint cleared 655 miles of high-risk vegetation near power lines, installed 1,215 automated reliability devices capable of self-healing, and added an additional 3,300 storm-resilient poles.

In April, CenterPoint will begin building a network of 100 new weather monitoring stations, which will provide 24/7 weather monitoring and storm response preparation.

“We will continue to work every day to complete these critical improvements as part of our company's goal of building the most resilient coastal grid in the country,” Carroll added in the release.

ExxonMobil, Rice launch sustainability initiative with first project underway

power partners

Houston-based ExxonMobil and Rice University announced a master research agreement this week to collaborate on research initiatives on sustainable energy efforts and solutions. The agreement includes one project that’s underway and more that are expected to launch this year.

“Our commitment to science and engineering, combined with Rice’s exceptional resources for research and innovation, will drive solutions to help meet growing energy demand,” Mike Zamora, president of ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering Co., said in a news release. “We’re thrilled to work together with Rice.”

Rice and Exxon will aim to develop “systematic and comprehensive solutions” to support the global energy transition, according to Rice. The university will pull from the university’s prowess in materials science, polymers and catalysts, high-performance computing and applied mathematics.

“Our agreement with ExxonMobil highlights Rice’s ability to bring together diverse expertise to create lasting solutions,” Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research at Rice, said in the release. “This collaboration allows us to tackle key challenges in energy, water and resource sustainability by harnessing the power of an interdisciplinary systems approach.”

The first research project under the agreement focuses on developing advanced technologies to treat desalinated produced water from oil and gas operations for potential reuse. It's being led by Qilin Li, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice and co-director of the Nanosystems Engineering Research Center for Nanotechnology-Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center.

Li’s research employs electrochemical advanced oxidation processes to remove harmful organic compounds and ammonia-nitrogen, aiming to make the water safe for applications such as agriculture, wildlife and industrial processes. Additionally, the project explores recovering ammonia and producing hydrogen, contributing to sustainable resource management.

Additional projects under the agreement with Exxon are set to launch in the coming months and years, according to Rice.

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