8 energy tech startups recognized at Houston's CERAWeek pitch competition

taking home the W

Here's what startups took home wins at CERAWeek. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Over 200 startups participated in CERAWeek this year, and 18 of those companies pitched at a Greater Houston Partnership event.

The Houston Energy Transition Initiative, an initiative to promote Houston's work within the energy transition, hosted its second annual HETI Energy Ventures Competition at CERAWeek Innovation Agora. The competition was divided into four categories. The first batch of startups consisted of five companies from the Texas Entrepreneurship Exchange for Energy, or TEX-E, a collaboration with Greentown Labs, MIT’s Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, and universities across Texas.

The winning startups shared $50,000 of prizes, sponsored by TEX-E. Houston-based Helix Earth Technologies — which has developed high-speed, high-efficiency filter systems derived from technology originating at NASA — won both the first place prize and fan favorite for the category. Helix's co-founders, Rawand Rasheed and Brad Husick from Rice University, walked away with $25,000 in prizes

Founded by Bryon Praslicka, Daniel Zamarron, and Craig Newman from Texas A&M University, Flux Works LLC, and its magnetic gear technology, took second place and $15,000 home. Tierra Climate, a two-sided marketplace for carbon offsets and other sustainability efforts founded by Emma Konet and Jacob Mansfield from Rice University, won third place and $10,000.

Helix Earth Technologies walked away with the top prize of the TEX-E category. Photo via greentownlabs.com

The next sets of startup pitches we broken down by funding stages — pre-seed and seed, series A, and series B and beyond.

Red Shift Energy, uses plasma energy to produce hydrogen from hydrogen sulfide, won fan favorite in the pre-seed and seed category sponsored by HX Venture Fund. A member of Halliburton Labs, the company also was recognized as Chevron favorite.

Per the judging panel, CanaGas won the title of most promising in the pre-seed and seed category sponsored by Alchemy Industrial. The Canadian company liquifies natural gas without costly cryogenics or stripping of the gas.

Houston-based Criterion Energy Partners won both the most-promising series A company category sponsored by SLB, but also the fan favorite series A category sponsored by Guerrella LLC. A geothermal energy tech company, Criterion was also a member of Rice's inaugural Clean Energy Accelerator cohort.

OptiSeis Solutions also won in both categories for the series B track. The company, a geophysical acquisition design and software company, won the title of most promising in the series B category sponsored by Pana LCE Investments and the series B fan favorite category sponsored by Halliburton Labs.

Lastly, the competition named the Most Impactful DEI, a category sponsored by Pana LCE Investments. Austin-based Gazelle Ecosystems, a social innovation startup with eco-solutions for corporations, won that category.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Global energy startup competition returns to Houston this fall

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The Society of Petroleum Engineers' Annual Technical Conference and Exhibition (ATCE) takes place in Houston this fall, and with it comes its ATCE Startup Village Energy Startup Competition.

Held this year at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Oct. 21, the fast-paced pitch competition invites early stage, upstream technology ventures from around the world to present on their companies and technologies in front of venture capitalists, angel investors and industry leaders.

The deadline to apply for the competition is Friday, July 18. Apply here.

The ATCE Startup Village is a partnership between SPE and the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship. Ten primary finalists and two alternates are selected to participate in the competition, where they have the opportunity to win cash prizes and gain mentorship from industry leaders.

Finalists will present a seven-minute pitch, followed by an additional seven minutes of Q&A.

They will also have the opportunity to meet with a panel of industry experts during a private coaching session the week of Sept. 22. Winners will be announced at ATCE in Houston, and finalists and alternates will be notified in late August.

Judging is based on four main criteria:

Innovative technology
Commercial strategy and business plan
Market potential
Management team and advisors

The competition has awarded nearly $460,000 in prize money to startups through the competition to date, according to the ATCE's website. Past winners have come from Canada, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Several Houston teams pitched at the 2024 competition during the 100th annual ATCE in New Orleans. The local teams included:

Decimetrix, led by CEO Alejandro Zotti, went on to win the Best in Show and People's Choice awards. Revolink Technology Company earned the Rising Star, or runner up, award.

Tesla announces annual meeting under pressure from shareholders

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Tesla has scheduled an annual shareholder meeting for November, one day after it came under pressure from major shareholders to do so.

Billionaire Elon Musk's company said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that the meeting would be held Nov. 6, but that may prove troublesome because it comes nearly three months after it is required to do so under state law in Texas, where the company is incorporated.

The annual meeting, given Tesla's fortunes this year, has the potential to be a raucous event and it is unclear how investors will react to the delay, which is rare for any major U.S. corporation.

Tesla shares have plunged 27% this year, largely due to blowback over Musk's affiliation with President Donald Trump, as well as rising competition.

The announcement of the meeting comes a day after a group of more than 20 Tesla shareholders sent a letter to the company's board pressing for an annual meeting after receiving no word of one with the deadline just days away.

Many shareholders have been miffed by Musk's participation in the Trump administration this year, saying he needs to focus on his EV company which is facing extraordinary pressures.

“An annual meeting provides shareholders with the opportunity to hear directly from the board about these concerns, and to vote for or against directors, the board’s approach to executive compensation, and other matters of material importance,” the group said in the letter.

The group cited Texas law, which requires companies to schedule annual shareholders meetings within 13 months of the prior annual meeting.

Tesla’s last shareholders meeting was on June 13 of last year, where investors voted to restore Musk’s record $44.9 billion pay package that was thrown out by a Delaware judge earlier that year.

Also on Thursday, Musk that the Grok chatbot will be heading to Tesla vehicles.

“Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles very soon. Next week at the latest,” Musk said on social media platform X, in response to a post stating that Grok implementation on Teslas wasn't announced on a Grok livestream Wednesday.

Grok was developed by Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and pitched as an alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini, or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Shares of Tesla rose 3% at the opening bell after tumbling this week when the feud between Trump and Musk heated up again.

Greentown Labs names Lawson Gow as its new Houston leader

head of hou

Greentown Labs has named Lawson Gow as its Head of Houston.

Gow is the founder of The Cannon, a coworking space with seven locations in the Houston area, with additional partner spaces. He also recently served as managing partner at Houston-based investment and advisory firm Helium Capital. Gow is the son of David Gow, founder of Energy Capital's parent company, Gow Media.

According to Greentown, Gow will "enhance the founder experience, cultivate strategic partnerships, and accelerate climatetech solutions" in his new role.

“I couldn’t be more excited to join Greentown at this critical moment for the energy transition,” Gow said in a news release. “Greentown has a fantastic track record of supporting entrepreneurs in Houston, Boston, and beyond, and I am eager to keep advancing our mission in the energy transition capital of the world.”

Gow has also held analyst, strategy and advising roles since graduating from Rice University.

“We are thrilled to welcome Lawson to our leadership team,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, CEO of Greentown Labs, added in the release. “Lawson has spent his career building community and championing entrepreneurs, and we look forward to him deepening Greentown’s support of climate and energy startups as our Head of Houston.”

Gow is the latest addition to a series of new hires at Greentown Labs following a leadership shakeup.

Flatter was named as the organization's new CEO in February, replacing Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, who replaced Kevin Knobloch after he announced that he would step down in July 2024 after less than a year in the role.

Greentown also named Naheed Malik its new CFO in January.

Timmeko Moore Love was named the first Houston general manager and senior vice president of Greentown Labs. According to LinkedIn, she left the role in January.

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