Annual report ranks 2 Houston energy tech companies on list of fasting growing businesses

by the numbers

While no Houston business was able to break into the top 100, four did make the cut for this prestigious list. Photo via Getty Images

Four Houston businesses made the cut on Deloitte's recently unveiled list of the fastest-growing technology companies in North America — and two are energy tech companies.

For the 29th year, 2023 Technology Fast 500 ranked top tech, media, telecommunications, life sciences, and energy technology companies based on fiscal year revenue growth from 2019 to 2022. While no Houston business was able to break into the top 100, four did make the cut for this year's list.

“It is great to see Houston represented alongside established technology hubs on this year’s Fast 500 list,” Amy Chronis, vice chair, US Energy and Chemicals Leader and Houston managing partner at Deloitte, says in a statement. “Houston is planting seeds for future innovation, and the companies named to this year’s list confirm our city’s value proposition as an innovative community. We look forward to this growth continuing in the future and extend our congratulations to this year’s Houston winners.”

Houston's two energy representatives are NatGasHub.com, a pipeline data source, at No. 356 with 364 percent growth and P97 Networks, a fintech company for gas stations, at No. 506 with 225 percent growth.

The other two Houston businesses are digital media company Direct Digital Holdings at No. 108 with 1,325 percent growth and B2B software solutions business Liongard at No. 208 with 680 percent growth

Thirty Texas companies made the list of the 541 ranked, making it the fourth most concentrated hub on the list behind the Bay Area, Tri-State Area, and New England. The companies on the list reported a revenue growth ranging from 201 percent to 222,189 percent over the three-year time frame from 2019 to 2022. The average growth rate was 1,934 percent and a median growth rate of 497 percent.

“Each year, we look forward to reviewing the progress and innovations of our Technology Fast 500 winners," Paul Silverglate, vice chair, Deloitte LLP and U.S. technology sector leader, says in the release. "This year is especially celebratory as we expand the number of winners to better represent just how many companies are developing new ideas to progress our society and the world, especially during a slow economy. While software and services and life sciences continue to dominate the top 10, we are encouraged to see other categories making their mark."

Software dominated the industry breakdown with 57 percent of the companies working in that field. However, the top company for 2023 was Vir Biotechnology Inc., a life science company that developed a COVID-19 treatment. Vir was also the top company in 2022.

Last year, only one Houston company made the list. At No. 372 Onit reported a revenue increase of 369 percent. The company also made the 2021 list, along with Graylog and Enercross.

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Dallas-area business to acquire Houston renewable energy co.

M&A moves

Houston-based developer of utility-scale renewable energy Proteus Power is being acquired by JBB Advanced Technologies for an undisclosed amount after founder, chairman, and CEO, John B. Billingsley signed a letter of intent to purchase.

"I know the potential of renewable energy, both for our country and for the small landowners and communities we work with," Billingsley says in a news release. "Proteus Power is just the type of company I have known and grown in the past, and we're perfectly positioned to make it a very profitable company for our investors. In the near term, this very substantial business will provide a multi-billion-dollar boost to the Texas economy, from Lubbock to Midland, across West Texas and down to the Gulf Coast."

Proteus Power currently incorporates a total of 15.5 gigawatts of utility-scale renewable energy projects, which include utility-scale solar and battery energy storage systems. Nearly 5 gigawatts of both utility-scale solar and battery energy storage should be developed at an estimated EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction) cost of $3.38 billion over the next four years.

Proteus Power projects also include multiple independent system operators: ERCOT West, ERCOT Houston, ERCOT North, ERCOT South, Miso LA/MS, Miso Illinois, Miso Texas, and SPP South.

Billingsley, who launched one of the nation's largest renewable energy companies, Tri Global Energy, with the purchase of Proteus Power, continues JBB’s efforts for “clean, affordable solar energy systems to commercial concerns” according to the company.

Proteus Power headquarters in Houston will move to JBB Advanced Technologies' headquarters in Carrollton, Texas, with all current employees being retained, pending the final acquisition, which is expected in the fourth quarter of 2024.A branch office is also planned to be located in Lubbock, Texas.

"The Proteus Power development team is clearly among the best in the renewable industry today," Billingsley adds. "The company has thrived under the leadership of Chief Development Officer Dan Phillips, and we at JBBAT are fortunate to inherit such a strong team to work with us as we move forward to jump back in the energy transition."

ExxonMobil signs biggest offshore CCS lease in the U.S.

big deal

Spring-based ExxonMobil continues to ramp up its carbon capture and storage business with a new offshore lease and a new CCS customer.

On October 10, ExxonMobil announced it had signed the biggest offshore carbon dioxide storage lease in the U.S. ExxonMobil says the more than 271,000-acre site, being leased from the Texas General Land Office, complements the onshore CO2 storage portfolio that it’s assembling.

“This is yet another sign of our commitment to CCS and the strides we’ve been able to make,” Dan Ammann, president of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, says in a news release.

The offshore site is adjacent to a CO2 pipeline network that ExxonMobil acquired in 2023 with its $4.9 billion purchase of Plano-based Denbury Resources.

Ammann told Forbes that when it comes to available acreage in the Gulf Coast, this site is “the largest and most attractive from a geological point of view.”

The initial customer for the newly purchased site will be Northbrook, Illinois-based CF Industries, Forbes reported.

This summer, ExxonMobil sealed a deal to remove up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 each year from CF’s nitrogen plant in Yazoo City, Mississippi. CF has earmarked about $100 million to build a CO2 dehydration and compression unit at the plant.

A couple of days before the lease announcement, Ammann said in a LinkedIn post that ExxonMobil had agreed to transport and annually store up to 1.2 metric tons of CO2 from the $1.6 billion New Generation Gas Gathering (NG3) pipeline project in Louisiana. Houston-based Momentum Midstream is developing NG3, which will collect and treat natural gas produced in Texas and Louisiana and deliver it to Gulf Coast markets.

This is ExxonMobil’s first CCS deal with a natural gas processor and fifth CCS deal agreement overall. To date, ExxonMobil has contracts in place for storage of up to 6.7 metric tons of CO2 per year.

“I’m proud that even more industries are choosing our #CCS solutions to meet their emissions reduction goals,” Ammann wrote on LinkedIn.

ExxonMobil says it operates the largest CO2 pipeline network in the U.S.

“The most fundamental thing we’re focused on is making sure the CO2 is stored safely and securely,” Ammann told Forbes in addressing fears that captured CO2 could seep back into the atmosphere.

Houston-area researchers score $1.5M grant to develop storm response tech platform

fresh funding

Researchers from Rice University have secured a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to continue their work on improving safety and resiliency of coastal communities plagued by flooding and hazardous weather.

The Rice team of engineers and collaborators includes Jamie Padgett, Ben Hu, and Avantika Gori along with David Retchless at Texas A&M University at Galveston. The researchers are working in collaboration with the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center and the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice and A&M-Galveston’s Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas.

Together, the team is developing and hopes to deploy “Open-Source Situational Awareness Framework for Equitable Multi-Hazard Impact Sensing using Responsible AI,” or OpenSafe.AI, a new platform that utilizes AI, data, and hazard and resilience models "to provide timely, reliable and equitable insights to emergency response organizations and communities before, during and after tropical cyclones and coastal storm events," reads a news release from Rice.

“Our goal with this project is to enable communities to better prepare for and navigate severe weather by providing better estimates of what is actually happening or might happen within the next hours or days,” Padgett, Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor in Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says in the release. “OpenSafe.AI will take into account multiple hazards such as high-speed winds, storm surge and compound flooding and forecast their potential impact on the built environment such as transportation infrastructure performance or hazardous material spills triggered by severe storms.”

OpenSafe.AI platform will be developed to support decision makers before, during, and after a storm.

“By combining cutting-edge AI with a deep understanding of the needs of emergency responders, we aim to provide accurate, real-time information that will enable better decision-making in the face of disasters,” adds Hu, associate professor of computer science at Rice.

In the long term, OpenSafe.AI hopes to explore how the system can be applied to and scaled in other regions in need of equitable resilience to climate-driven hazards.

“Our goal is not only to develop a powerful tool for emergency response agencies along the coast but to ensure that all communities ⎯ especially the ones most vulnerable to storm-induced damage ⎯ can rely on this technology to better respond to and recover from the devastating effects of coastal storms,” adds Gori, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice.

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