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Houston climatech startup closes $5M seed round to scale copper alternative

seeing green

DexMat plans to use its seed funding to commercially scale Galvorn, its carbon-based conductive fiber. Photo courtesy DexMat.

Houston-based material science and climatech startup DexMat has closed a $5 million seed round.

The round was led by non sibi ventures, with participation from Governance Partners, Tailwind Futures, BetterWay, Capital Factory and other investors. The company additionally announced that it has secured $3 million of non-dilutive funding.

DexMat plans to use the recent round to commercially scale Galvorn, its carbon-based conductive fiber. The high-performance copper alternative, originally developed at Rice University, is made from carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers, which are less energy- and CO2-intensive to produce.

The company says it will grow its technical and commercial teams and advance pilot-scale production to meet demand from new and existing customers in aerospace, defense and manufacturing industries.

"We’re seeing clear customer pull, particularly in wire and cable applications, as manufacturers look for conductive materials that are less dense, more durable, and resilient at scale,” Bryan Guido Hassin, CEO of DexMat, said in a news release. “This funding allows us to meet near-term demand and expand production capabilities in response to evolving supply-chain constraints."

The recent funding comes after a year of impressive growth. According to the news release, DexMat more than doubled its production and sales of Galvorn in 2025 compared to the previous year.

“We consistently hear the same message from customers: the material performs really well, and they need more of it at a lower cost,” Dmitri Tsentalovich, co-founder and CTO of DexMat, added in the release. “This round supports the production scale-up and cost reductions required to move Galvorn into broader commercial use.”

DexMat raised $3 million in funding in a round led by Shell Ventures in 2023. The company reports a 20-fold increase in capacity since its pre-seed round, along with a 96 percent reduction in production costs.

DexMat's technology was originally developed in the Rice University lab of co-founder Matteo Pasquali, who also serves as director of Rice’s Carbon Hub. According to previous reports, the company was built on over $20 million in non-dilutive funding—including grants from the Air Force Research Laboratory, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, Advanced Functional Fabrics of America and the National Science Foundation—with Rice University included in the list of original investors.

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Rice University researchers have published new findings that shed new light on processes like photosynthesis and solar energy conversion. Photo by Jorge Vidal/Rice University.

Houston quantum simulator research reveals clues for solar energy conversion

energy flow

Rice University scientists have used a programmable quantum simulator to mimic how energy moves through a vibrating molecule.

The research, which was published in Nature Communications last month, lets the researchers watch and control the flow of energy in real time and sheds light on processes like photosynthesis and solar energy conversion, according to a news release from the university.

The team, led by Rice assistant professor of physics and astronomy Guido Pagano, modeled a two-site molecule with one part supplying energy (the donor) and the other receiving it (the acceptor).

Unlike in previous experiments, the Rice researchers were able to smoothly tune the system to model multiple types of vibrations and manipulate the energy states in a controlled setting. This allowed the team to explore different types of energy transfer within the same platform.

“By adjusting the interactions between the donor and acceptor, coupling to two types of vibrations and the character of those vibrations, we could see how each factor influenced the flow of energy,” Pagano said in the release.

The research showed that more vibrations sped up energy transfer and opened new paths for energy to move, sometimes making transfer more efficient even with energy loss. Additionally, when vibrations differed, efficient transfer happened over a wider range of donor–acceptor energy differences.

“The results show that vibrations and their environment are not simply background noise but can actively steer energy flow in unexpected ways,” Pagano added.

The team believes the findings could help with the design of organic solar cells, molecular wires and other devices that depend on efficient energy or charge transfer. They could also have an environmental impact by improving energy harvesting to reduce energy losses in electronics.

“These are the kinds of phenomena that physical chemists have theorized exist but could not easily isolate experimentally, especially in a programmable manner, until now,” Visal So, a Rice doctoral student and first author of the study, added in the release.

The study was supported by The Welch Foundation,the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, the Army Research Office and the Department of Energy.

Robert J. Gaudette will take over as NRG's new CEO on April 30. Photo via NRG.com.

Houston-based NRG announces new CEO and succession plan

new leader

Houston-based NRG Energy Inc. announced Jan. 7 that it has appointed Robert J. Gaudette as president and CEO. Gaudette took over as president effective Jan. 7 and will assume the role of CEO April 30, coinciding with the company's next stockholder meeting.

Gaudette, who previously served as executive vice president and president of NRG Business and Wholesale Operations, will succeed Lawrence Coben in the leadership roles. Coben will remain an advisor to NRG through the end of the year and will also continue to serve as board chair until April 30. Antonio Carrillo, lead independent director at NRG, will take over as board chair.

"Rob has played a central role in strengthening NRG’s position as a leader in our industry through strategic growth, operational excellence, and customer-focused innovation," Coben said in the news release. "He is a strong, decisive leader with extensive knowledge of our business, markets, and customers. The Board and I are confident that Rob is the right person to lead NRG forward and take the NRG rocket ship to new heights. I can’t wait to see what comes next.”

Gaudette has been with NRG since 2001. He has served as EVP of NRG Business and Market Operations since 2022 and president of NRG Business and Market Operations since 2024. In these roles, he led NRG’s power generation and oversaw its portfolio of commercial and industrial products and services as well as its market operations, according to the company.

He has held various executive leadership roles at NRG. He earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from The College of William and Mary and an MBA at Rice University, where he was a Jones Scholar. He also served four years as an Army officer.

“It is an honor to be appointed NRG’s next CEO at this transformative time for the energy sector and our company,” Gaudette said in the release. “With NRG’s electricity, natural gas and smart home portfolio, we are ideally positioned to meet America’s evolving energy needs. I am grateful to Larry and all my NRG colleagues, both past and present, who built our great company and positioned us for the future. I look forward to leading our incredible team to deliver affordable, resilient power for the customers and communities we serve, while creating substantial value for our shareholders.”

In addition to its traditional power generation and electricity businesses, NRG has been working to develop a 1-gigawatt virtual power plant by connecting thousands of decentralized energy sources by 2035 in an effort to meet Texas’ surging energy demands.

The company announced partnerships last year with two California-based companies to bolster home battery use and grow its network. NRG has said the VPP could provide energy to 200,000 homes during peak demand.

A team from UH has published two breakthrough studies that could help cut costs and boost efficiency in carbon capture. Photo courtesy UH.

10+ exciting energy breakthroughs made by Houston teams in 2025

Year In Review

Editor's note: As 2025 comes to a close, we're revisiting the biggest headlines and major milestones of the energy sector this year. Here are the most exciting scientific breakthroughs made by Houstonians this year that are poised to shape the future of energy:

Rice University team develops eco-friendly method to destroy 'forever chemicals' in water

Rice University researchers have developed a new method for removing PFAS from water that works 100 times faster than traditional filters. Photo via Rice University.

Rice University researchers have teamed up with South Korean scientists to develop the first eco-friendly technology that captures and destroys toxic “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, in water. The Rice-led study centered on a layered double hydroxide (LDH) material made from copper and aluminum that could rapidly capture PFAS and be used to destroy the chemicals.

UH researchers make breakthrough in cutting carbon capture costs

UH carbon capture cost cutting

A team from UH has published two breakthrough studies that could help cut costs and boost efficiency in carbon capture. Photo courtesy UH.

A team of researchers at the University of Houston has made two breakthroughs in addressing climate change and potentially reducing the cost of capturing harmful emissions from power plants. Led by Professor Mim Rahimi at UH’s Cullen College of Engineering, the team first introduced a membraneless electrochemical process that cuts energy requirements and costs for amine-based carbon dioxide capture during the acid gas sweetening process.The second breakthrough displayed a reversible flow battery architecture that absorbs CO2 during charging and releases it upon discharge.

Houston team’s discovery brings solid-state batteries closer to EV use

Houston researchers have uncovered why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process. Photo via Getty Images.

A team of researchers from the University of Houston, Rice University and Brown University has uncovered new findings that could extend battery life and potentially change the electric vehicle landscape. Their work deployed a powerful, high-resolution imaging technique known as operando scanning electron microscopy to better understand why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process.

Houston researchers make breakthrough on electricity-generating bacteria

A team of Rice researchers, including Caroline Ajo-Franklin and Biki Bapi Kundu, has uncovered how certain bacteria breathe by generating electricity. Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University.

Research from Rice University that merges biology with electrochemistry has uncovered new findings on how some bacteria generate electricity. Research showed how some bacteria use compounds called naphthoquinones, rather than oxygen, to transfer electrons to external surfaces in a process known as extracellular respiration. In other words, the bacteria are exhale electricity as they breathe. This process has been observed by scientists for years, but the Rice team's deeper understanding of its mechanism is a major breakthrough, with implications for the clean energy and industrial biotechnology sectors, according to the university.

Rice researchers' quantum breakthrough could pave the way for next-gen superconductors

Researchers from Rice University say their recent findings could revolutionize power grids, making energy transmission more efficient. Image via Getty Images.

A study from researchers at Rice University could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use. The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials. The materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

UH researchers develop breakthrough material to boost efficiency of sodium-ion batteries

A team at the University of Houston is changing the game for sodium-ion batteries. Photo via Getty Images

A research lab at the University of Houston developed a new type of material for sodium-ion batteries that could make them more efficient and boost their energy performance. The Canepa Research Laboratory is working on a new material called sodium vanadium phosphate, which improves sodium-ion battery performance by increasing the energy density. This material brings sodium technology closer to competing with lithium-ion batteries, according to the researchers.

Houston researchers make headway on developing low-cost sodium-ion batteries

Houston researchers make headway on developing low-cost sodium-ion batteries

Rice's Atin Pramanik and a team in Pulickel Ajayan's lab shared new findings that offer a sustainable alternative to lithium batteries by enhancing sodium and potassium ion storage. Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Courtesy Rice University

A new study by researchers from Rice University’s Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Baylor University and the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram has introduced a solution that could help develop more affordable and sustainable sodium-ion batteries. The team worked with tiny cone- and disc-shaped carbon materials from oil and gas industry byproducts with a pure graphitic structure. The forms allow for more efficient energy storage with larger sodium and potassium ions, which is a challenge for anodes in battery research. Sodium and potassium are more widely available and cheaper than lithium.

Houston scientists develop 'recharge-to-recycle' reactor for lithium-ion batteries

Rice University scientists' “recharge-to-recycle” reactor has major implications for the electric vehicle sector. Photo courtesy Jorge Vidal/Rice University.

Engineers at Rice University have developed a cleaner, innovative process to turn end-of-life lithium-ion battery waste into new lithium feedstock. The findings demonstrate how the team’s new “recharge-to-recycle” reactor recharges the battery’s waste cathode materials to coax out lithium ions into water. The team was then able to form high-purity lithium hydroxide, which was clean enough to feed directly back into battery manufacturing. The study has major implications for the electric vehicle sector, which significantly contributes to the waste stream from end-of-life battery packs.

Houston researchers develop strong biomaterial that could replace plastic

A team led by M.A.S.R. Saadi and Muhammad Maksud Rahman has developed a biomaterial that they hope could be used for the “next disposable water bottle." Photo courtesy Rice University.

Collaborators from two Houston universities are leading the way in engineering a biomaterial into a scalable, multifunctional material that could potentially replace plastic. The study introduced a biosynthesis technique that aligns bacterial cellulose fibers in real-time, which resulted in robust biopolymer sheets with “exceptional mechanical properties.” Ultimately, the scientists hope this discovery could be used for the “next disposable water bottle,” which would be made by biodegradable biopolymers in bacterial cellulose, an abundant resource on Earth. Additionally, the team sees applications for the materials in the packaging, breathable textiles, electronics, food and energy sectors.

Houston researchers reach 'surprising' revelation in materials recycling efforts

A team led by Matteo Pasquali, director of Rice’s Carbon Hub, has unveiled how carbon nanotube fibers can be a sustainable alternative to materials like steel, copper and aluminum. Photo by Jeff Fitlow/ Courtesy Rice University

Researchers at Rice University have demonstrated how carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers can be fully recycled without any loss in their structure or properties. The discovery shows that CNT fibers could be used as a sustainable alternative to traditional materials like metals, polymers and the larger, harder-to-recycle carbon fibers, which the team hopes can pave the way for more sustainable and efficient recycling efforts.

Rice University scientists' “recharge-to-recycle” reactor has major implications for the electric vehicle sector. Photo courtesy Jorge Vidal/Rice University.

Houston scientists develop 'recharge-to-recycle' reactor for lithium-ion batteries

reduce, recharge, recycle

Engineers at Rice University have developed a cleaner, innovative process to turn end-of-life lithium-ion battery waste into new lithium feedstock.

The findings, recently published in the journal Joule, demonstrate how the team’s new “recharge-to-recycle” reactor recharges the battery’s waste cathode materials to coax out lithium ions into water. The team was then able to form high-purity lithium hydroxide, which was clean enough to feed directly back into battery manufacturing.

The study has major implications for the electric vehicle sector, which significantly contributes to the waste stream from end-of-life battery packs. Additionally, lithium tends to be expensive to mine and refine, and current recycling methods are energy- and chemical-intensive.

“Directly producing high-purity lithium hydroxide shortens the path back into new batteries,” Haotian Wang, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, co-corresponding author of the study and co-founder of Solidec, said in a news release. “That means fewer processing steps, lower waste and a more resilient supply chain.”

Sibani Lisa Biswal, chair of Rice’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the William M. McCardell Professor in Chemical Engineering, also served as co-corresponding author on the study.

“We asked a basic question: If charging a battery pulls lithium out of a cathode, why not use that same reaction to recycle?” Biswal added in the release. “By pairing that chemistry with a compact electrochemical reactor, we can separate lithium cleanly and produce the exact salt manufacturers want.”

The new process also showed scalability, according to Rice. The engineers scaled the device to 20 square centimeters, then ran a 1,000-hour stability test and processed 57 grams of industrial black mass supplied by industry partner Houston-based TotalEnergies. The results produced lithium hydroxide that was more than 99 percent pure. It also maintained an average lithium recovery rate of nearly 90 percent over the 1,000-hour test, showing its durability. The process also worked across multiple battery chemistries, including lithium iron phosphate, lithium manganese oxide and nickel-manganese-cobalt variants.

Looking ahead, the team plans to scale the process and consider ways it can sustain high efficiency for greater lithium hydroxide concentrations.

“We’ve made lithium extraction cleaner and simpler,” Biswal added in the release. “Now we see the next bottleneck clearly. Tackle concentration, and you unlock even better sustainability.

Photo courtesy of Rice University

How executive education retains your best employees + drives success

Investing in People

Hiring is tough, but retaining great people is even harder. Ask almost any manager what keeps them up at night, and the answer usually comes back to the same thing: How do we keep our best employees growing here instead of looking elsewhere?

One reliable approach has held up across industries. When people see their employer investing in their development, they’re more likely to stay, contribute, and imagine a future with the organization.

The data backs this up. Employees who take part in ongoing training are far less likely to leave, and the effect is especially strong for younger workers. One national survey found that 86% of millennials would stay with an employer that invests in their development. Companies that build a real learning culture see retention jump by 30-50%. The pattern is consistent: When people can learn and advance, they stay.

The ROI of executive education
Professional development signals value, but it also builds capability. When people have access to structured learning, they become better problem-solvers, more adaptable, and more confident leading through change.

That's the focus of Executive Education at Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. The portfolio is built for the realities of modern leadership: AI and digital transformation courses for teams navigating new technologies, and deeper programs in innovation and strategy for leaders sharpening long-term thinking.

“People, managers, professionals, and executives in all functional areas of business can benefit from this program,” notes Jing Zhou, Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology at Rice. “We teach the fundamental principles of how to drive innovation and broaden the cognitive space.”

That perspective runs through every offering, from the Rice Advanced Management Program to the Leadership Accelerator and Leading Innovation. Each program gives participants practical tools to think strategically, work across teams and make meaningful change inside their organizations.

Building the leadership pipeline
Leadership development isn’t a perk anymore. It’s a strategic need for any organization that wants to grow and stay competitive.

Employers know this — nearly two-thirds say leadership training is essential to their success — yet employees still report feeling stalled. Reports find 74% of employees feel they aren’t reaching their potential because they lacked meaningful growth opportunities.

Rice Business designs its Executive Education programs to address that gap. The Rice Advanced Management Program, for example, supports leaders preparing for C-suite, board, or enterprise-level roles. Its format — two in-person modules separated by several weeks — gives participants space to test ideas at work, return with questions, and build on what they’ve learned. The structure fits demanding executive schedules while creating room for deeper reflection and richer peer connections.

Just as important, the program helps senior leaders align on strategy and culture. Participants develop a shared language and build stronger relationships, which translates into clearer decision-making, better collaboration, and less burnout across teams.

Houston’s advantage
Houston gives Rice Business Executive Education a distinctive edge. The city’s position in energy, healthcare, logistics, and innovation means participants are learning in the middle of a global business ecosystem. That proximity brings a mix of perspectives you don’t get in more siloed markets, and it pushes leaders to apply ideas to real-world problems in real time.

The expertise runs deep on campus, as well. Participants learn from faculty who are shaping conversations in their fields, not just teaching from a playbook. For many organizations, that outside perspective is a meaningful complement to in-house training — a chance to stretch thinking, challenge assumptions, and broaden leadership capacity.

Rice Business offers multiple paths into that experience, from open-enrollment programs like Leading Organizational Change, Executive Leadership for Women, or Driving Growth through AI and Digital Transformation to fully customized corporate partnerships. Across all formats, the focus is the same: education that is practical, relevant, and built for impact.

Investing in retention and results
When organizations make room for real development, the payoff shows up quickly: higher engagement, stronger leadership pipelines, and lower turnover. It also shapes the culture. People are more willing to take risks, ask better questions, and stay curious when they know learning is part of the job.

As Brent Smith, senior associate dean for Executive Education at Rice Business, explains, “There’s a layer of learning in leadership that’s about helping people adopt a leadership identity — to see themselves as the actual leader for their organization. That’s not an easy transition, but it’s the foundation of lasting success.”

For companies that want to build loyalty, deepen leadership capacity, and stay competitive in a fast-changing environment, investing in people isn’t optional. Rice Business Executive Education offers a clear path to do it well. Learn more here.

Check out upcoming programs:

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Houston energy expert looks ahead to climate tech trends of 2026

Guest Column

There is no sugar‑coating it: 2025 was a rough year for many climate tech founders. Headlines focused on policy rollbacks and IRA uncertainty, while total climate tech venture and growth investment only inched up to about 40.5 billion dollars, an 8% rise that felt more like stabilization than the 2021–2022 boom. Deal count actually fell 18% and investor participation dropped 19%, with especially steep pullbacks in carbon and transportation, as capital concentrated in fewer, larger, “safer” bets. Growth-stage funding jumped 78% while early-stage seed rounds dropped 20%.

On top of that, tariff battles and shifting trade rules added real supply‑chain friction. In the first half of 2025, solar and wind were still 91% of new U.S. capacity additions, but interconnection delays, equipment uncertainty, and changing incentive structures meant many projects stalled or were repriced mid‑stream. Founders who had raised on 2021‑style valuations and policy optimism suddenly found themselves stuck in limbo, extending runway or shutting down.

The bright spots were teams positioned at the intersection of climate and the AI power surge. Power demand from data centers is now a primary driver of new climate‑aligned offtake, pulling capital toward firm, 24/7 resources. Geothermal developers like Fervo Energy, Sage Geosystems and XGS did well. Google’s enhanced‑geothermal deal in Nevada scales from a 3.5 MW pilot to about 115 MW under a clean transition tariff, nearly 30× growth in geothermal capacity enabled by a single corporate buyer. Meta and others are exploring similar pathways to secure round‑the‑clock low‑carbon power for hyperscale loads.

Beyond geothermal, nuclear is clearly back on the strategic menu. In 2024, Google announced the first U.S. corporate nuclear offtake, committing to purchase 500 MW from Kairos Power’s SMR fleet by 2035, a signal that big tech is willing to underwrite new firm‑power technologies when the decarbonization and reliability story is compelling. Meta just locked in 6.6GW of nuclear capacity through deals with Vistra, Oklo, and TerraPower.

Growth investors and corporates are increasingly clustering around platforms that can monetize long‑duration PPAs into data‑center demand rather than purely policy‑driven arbitrage.

Looking into 2026, the same trends will continue:

Solar and wind

Even with policy headwinds, solar and wind continue to dominate new capacity. In the first half of 2025 they made up about 90% of new U.S. electricity capacity. Over the 2025–2028 period, FERC’s ‘high‑probability’ pipeline points to on the order of 90–93 GW of new utility‑scale solar and roughly 20–23 GW of new wind, far outpacing other resources.

Storage and flexibility

Solar plus batteries is now the default build—solar and storage together account for about 81% of expected 2025 U.S. capacity additions, with storage deployments scaling alongside renewables to keep grids flexible. Thermal storage and other grid‑edge flexibility solutions are also attracting growing attention as ways to smooth volatile load.

EVs and transport

EV uptake continues to anchor long‑term battery demand; while transportation funding cooled in 2025, EV sales and charging build‑out are still major components of clean‑energy demand‑side investment

Buildings

Heat pumps, smart HVAC, and efficient water heating are now the dominant vectors for building‑sector decarbonization. Heating and cooling startups alone have raised billions since 2020, with nearly 700 million dollars going into HVAC‑focused companies in 2024, and that momentum carried into 2025.

Hydrogen

The green hydrogen narrative has faded, but analysts still see hydrogen as essential for steel, chemicals, and other hard‑to‑abate sectors, with large‑scale projects and offtake frameworks under development rather than headline hype.

CCS/CCUS

After years of skepticism, more large CCS projects are finally reaching FID and coming online, helped by a mix of tax credits and industrial demand, which makes CCS look more investable than it did in the pre‑IRA era.

So, yes, 2025 was a downer from the easy‑money, policy‑euphoria years. But the signal beneath the noise is clear: capital is rotating toward technologies with proven unit economics, real offtake (especially from AI‑driven power loads), and credible paths to scale—not away from climate altogether.

---

Nada Ahmed is the founding partner at Houston-based Energy Tech Nexus.

Houston startup advances methane tech, sets sights on growth capital

making milestones

Houston-based climatech startup Aquanta Vision achieved key milestones in 2025 for its enhanced methane-detection app and has its focus set on future funding.

Among the achievements was the completion of the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Sensing and Computation for Environmental Decision-making (ASCEND) Engine. The program, based in Colorado and Wyoming, awarded a total of $3 million in grants to support the commercialization of projects that tackle critical resilience challenges, such as water security, wildfire prediction and response, and methane emissions.

Aquanta Vision’s funding went toward commercializing its NETxTEN app, which automates leak detection to improve accuracy, speed and safety. The company estimates that methane leaks cost the U.S. energy industry billions of dollars each year, with 60 percent of leaks going undetected. Additionally, methane leaks account for around 10 percent of natural gas's contribution to climate change, according to MIT’s climate portal.

Throughout the months-long ASCEND program, Aquanta Vision moved from the final stages of testing into full commercial deployment of NETxTEN. The app can instantly identify leaks via its physics-based algorithms and raw video output of optical gas imaging cameras. It does not require companies to purchase new hardware, requires no human intervention and is universally compatible with all optical gas imaging (OGI) cameras. During over 12,000 test runs, 100 percent of leaks were detected by NETxTEN’s system, according to the company.

The app is geared toward end-users in the oil and gas industry who use OGI cameras to perform regular leak detection inspections and emissions monitoring. Aquanta Vision is in the process of acquiring new clients for the app and plans to scale commercialization between now and 2028, Babur Ozden, the company’s founder and CEO, tells Energy Capital.

“In the next 16 months, (our goal is to) gain a number of key customers as major accounts and OEM partners as distribution channels, establish benefits and stickiness of our product and generate growing, recurring revenues for ourselves and our partners,” he says.

The company also received an investment for an undisclosed amount from Marathon Petroleum Corp. late last year. The funding complemented follow-on investments from Ecosphere Ventures and Odyssey Energy Advisors.

Ozden says the funds will go toward the extension of its runway through the end of 2026. It will also help Aquanta Vision grow its team.

Ozden and Marcus Martinez, a product systems engineer, founded Aquanta Vision in 2023 and have been running it as a two-person operation. The company brought on four interns last year, but is looking to add more staff.

Ozden says the company also plans to raise a seed round in 2027 “to catapult us to a rapid growth phase in 2028-29.”

HETI discusses Houston’s energy leadership, from pathways to progress

The View From HETI

In 2024, RMI in collaboration with Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) and the Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI) mapped out ambitious scenarios for the region’s decarbonization journey. The report showed that with the right investments and technologies, Houston could achieve meaningful emissions reductions while continuing to power the world. That analysis painted a picture of what could be possible by 2030 and 2050.

Today, the latest HETI progress report shows Houston is not just planning anymore — the region is delivering.

Real results, right now

The numbers tell a compelling story. Since 2017, HETI’s member companies have invested more than $95 billion in low-carbon infrastructure, technologies, and R&D. That’s not a commitment for the future—that’s capital deployed, projects built, and operations transformed.

The results showed industry-wide reductions of 20% in total Scope 1 greenhouse gas emissions and a remarkable 55% decrease in methane emissions from global operations. These aren’t projections—they’re actual reductions happening across refineries, chemical plants, and production facilities throughout the Houston region.

How Houston is leading

What makes Houston’s approach work is its practical, technology-driven focus. Companies across the energy value chain are implementing solutions that work today:

  • Electrifying operations and integrating renewable power
  • Deploying advanced methane detection and elimination technologies
  • Upgrading equipment for greater efficiency
  • Capturing and storing carbon at commercial scale
  • Developing breakthrough technologies from geothermal to advanced nuclear

Take ExxonMobil’s Permian Basin electrification, Shell and Chevron’s lower-carbon Whale project, or BP’s massive Tangguh carbon capture project in Indonesia. These aren’t pilot programs—they’re multi-billion dollar investments demonstrating that decarbonization and energy production go hand in hand.

From scenarios to strategy

The RMI analysis identified three key pathways forward: enabling operational decarbonization, accelerating low-carbon technology scale-up, and creating carbon accounting mechanisms. Houston’s energy leaders have embraced all three.

The momentum is undeniable. Companies are setting ambitious 2030 and 2050 targets with clear roadmaps. New projects are reaching final investment decisions. Innovation ecosystems are flourishing. And critically, this progress is creating jobs and driving economic growth across the region.

Why this matters

Houston isn’t just managing the energy transition—it’s proving what’s possible when you combine world-class engineering expertise, integrated infrastructure, access to capital, and a commitment to both energy security and emissions reduction.

The dual challenge of delivering more energy with less emissions isn’t theoretical in Houston—it’s operational reality. Every ton of CO₂ reduced, every efficiency gain achieved, and every technology deployed demonstrates that we can meet growing global energy demand while making measurable progress on climate goals.

The path forward

The journey from last year’s scenarios to this year’s results shows something crucial: when industry, policymakers, and communities align around practical solutions, transformation accelerates.

Houston’s energy leadership isn’t about choosing between reliable energy and environmental progress, it’s about delivering both. And based on the progress we’re seeing, the momentum is only building.

———

Read the full analysis here. This article originally appeared on the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Initiative blog. HETI exists to support Houston's future as an energy leader. For more information about the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, EnergyCapitalHTX's presenting sponsor, visit htxenergytransition.org.
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