Houston biomaterials startup taps partner for commercial-scale production

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Rheom Materials announced a strategic partnership with Bixby International for the commercial-scale production of its novel biobased material, Shorai. Photo via Rheom

A Houston-based next-gen material startup has revealed a new strategic partnership.

Rheom Materials, formerly known as Bucha Bio, has announced a strategic partnership with thermoplastic extrusion and lamination company Bixby International, which is part of Rheom Material’s goal for commercial-scale production of its novel biobased material, Shorai.

Shorai is a biobased leather alternative that meets criteria for many companies wanting to incorporate sustainable materials. Shorai performs like traditional leather, but offers scalable production at a competitive price point. Extruded as a continuous sheet and having more than 92 percent biobased content, Shorai achieves an 80 percent reduction in carbon footprint compared to synthetic leather, according to Rheom.

Rheom, which is backed by Houston-based New Climate Ventures, will be allowing Bixby International to take a minority ownership stake in Rheom Materials, as part of the deal.

“Partnering with Bixby International enables us to harness their extensive expertise in the extrusion industry and its entire supply chain, facilitating the successful scale-up of Shorai production,” Carolina Amin Ferril, CTO at Rheom Materials, says in a news release. “Their highly competitive and adaptable capabilities will allow us to offer more solutions and exceed our customers’ expectations.”

In late 2024, Rheom Materials started its first pilot-scale trial at the Bixby International facilities with the goal to produce Shorai for prototype samples.

"The scope of what we were doing — both on what raw materials we were using and what we were creating just kept expanding and growing," founder Zimri Hinshaw previously told InnovationMap.

Listen to Hinshaw on the Houston Innovators Podcast episode recorded in October:

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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Zimri T. Hinshaw, founder and CEO of Rheom Materials, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Rheom

Podcast: Houston bio-based materials founder rebrands, evolves future-focused sustainability startup

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At first, Zimri T. Hinshaw just wanted to design a sustainable, vegan jacket inspired by bikers he saw in Tokyo. Now, he's running a bio-based materials company with two product lines and is ready to disrupt the fashion and automotive industries.

Hinshaw founded Rheom Materials (née Bucha Bio) in 2020, but a lot has changed since then. He moved the company from New York to Houston, built out a facility in Houston's East End Maker Hub, and rebranded to reflect the company's newest phase and extended product lines, deriving from dozens of different ingredients, including algae, seaweed, corn, other fruits and vegetables, and more.

"As a company, we pivoted our technology from growing kombucha sheets to grinding up bacteria nanocellulose from kombucha into our products and then we moved away from that entirely," Hinshaw says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "Today, we're designing different materials that are more sustainable, and the inputs are varied."

Now, in addition to Rheom's leather-like alternative, Shorai, the company has a plastic-like material, Benree, that's 100 percent bio based.

"The scope of what we were doing — both on what raw materials we were using and what we were creating just kept expanding and growing," Hinshaw says.

With that major evolution past just kombucha-based textiles, it was time for a new name, ideated by the company's technical team. "Rheom" is the combination of "rheology" — the study of how polymers flow — and "form."

Rheom has also built a state-of-the-art chemicals testing lab at its new facility after moving into it early last year.

"We've got a ton of capabilities now — and we've been growing those since the beginning," Hinshaw says. "Now we have all this testing equipment — things that pull materials apart, things that test the flexibility of materials."

Next up, Rheom, which is backed by Houston-based New Climate Ventures, among other VCs, will raise a series A funding round to continue supporting its growth.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Electric truck charging network expands to Houston-Dallas freight corridor

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Greenlane Infrastructure, an electric public charging station developer and operator, is expanding outside of its home state of California and into Texas.

The Santa Monica-based company plans to launch its high-power charging sites along the Dallas–Houston I-45 corridor, which is one of the highest-volume commercial trucking routes in the country, according to a news release from Greenlane.

The sites will feature 6-8 pull-through lanes with chargers supporting combined charging system (CCS) and megawatt charging system (MCS) connectors that allow electric truck drivers to recharge their vehicles during standard rest periods. They will also offer tractor parking and charging, as well as operations that will allow for overnight stops.

Drivers can reserve chargers in advance, monitor charging activity in real time, and manage billing from the Greenlane Edge platform.

“Our customers are making commitments to electrify their fleets, and they need a charging network that can grow alongside them,” Patrick Macdonald-King, CEO of Greenlane, said in the release. “This is the first leg of the Texas triangle, one of the more important freight arteries in the country, so bringing high-power charging there is the next logical step in building a network that serves how freight moves across America.”

Greenlane is also expanding across the West Coast, with five locations under development in California and Nevada. It opened its flagship Greenlane Center in Colton, California, in April 2025. The company plans to open locations in Blythe, California, and Port of Long Beach this year.

Greelane was founded in 2023 as a joint venture between Daimler Truck North America, NextEra Energy Resources and BlackRock. It has secured partnerships with electric long-haul truck developer Windrose Technology, Velocity Truck Centers and Volvo Trucks North America.

Major Oxy announcement, new AI platform, and more Houston energy headlines

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Editor's note: The top Houston energy headlines for the first half of May include the rollout of a new AI platform and a big announcement from Oxy. Plus, a nuclear reactor company opens a Houston office and a local battery recycling company secures millions in financing. Here are the most-read EnergyCapitalHTX stories published May 1-14, 2026:

1. Houston AI startup rolls out platform to reshape oil and gas workflows

Houston-based Collide is looking to solve AI issues in the energy industry from within. Co-founded by former oil roughneck Collin McLelland, the company has developed AI software for operators and field teams, shaped by firsthand oilfield experience. Its AI-native platform “retrieves and synthesizes data from authoritative sources to deliver accurate, cited, and energy-focused insights to oil and gas professionals,” it says. Continue reading.

2. Houston battery recycling company secures $32M in financing

Houston-based Ace Green Recycling has raised $32 million in private investment in public equity (PIPE) financing to support its future plans for growth. The battery recycling technology company secured the financing with Athena Technology Acquisition Corp. II, a publicly traded special purpose acquisition company that Ace previously announced it plans to merge with. Once the merger is completed, Ace will become a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "AGXI." Ace says the financing will be used to complete the merger and scale the company. Continue reading.

3. Modular nuclear reactor company opens office in Houston

The nuclear energy renaissance continues in Texas with an announcement by NuScale Power. The Oregon-based provider of proprietary and innovative advanced small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear technology announced in April it would be opening office space in Houston’s CityCentre. “Opening this space in Houston underscores our commitment to meeting rising energy demand with safe, scalable nuclear technology,” John Hopkins, NuScale president and CEO, said. Continue reading.

4. Oxy officially announces CEO transition, names successor

Houston-based Occidental (Oxy) has officially announced its longtime CEO's retirement and her successor. Oxy shared that Vicki Hollub will retire June 1. Reuters first reported Hollub's plan to retire in March, but a firm date had not been set. Hollub will remain on Oxy's board of directors. Richard Jackson, who currently serves as Oxy's COO, will replace Hollub in the CEO role. Continue reading.

5. Texas data center proposed by U.S. Army could use more power than El Paso

The U.S. Army is proposing developing a gargantuan, 3-gigawatt data center complex on Fort Bliss property that within a few years would consume more electricity than all of El Paso Electric’s 460,000 customers combined – even as questions about its development, water usage and air pollution remain unanswered. If built, it would be the third major data center project in the El Paso region, along with Meta Platform’s $10 billion facility in Northeast and the $165 billion Project Jupiter campus that Oracle and OpenAI are building in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. The combined scale and size of the three facilities could quickly transform the Borderland into one of the nation’s core hubs of power generation and AI infrastructure. Continue reading.

Houston startup lands $1B from Blackstone and Halliburton, plans acquisition

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Houston-based power generation startup VoltaGrid has nailed down a $1 billion equity investment from asset management heavyweight Blackstone and Houston-based oilfield services provider Halliburton.

The investment comes in two forms:

A $775 million primary capital raise
A $225 million secondary capital purchase from existing investors

VoltaGrid, founded in 2020, provides behind-the-meter mobile power generation equipment for data centers, microgrids and industrial customers.

Aside from the $1 billion investment, VoltaGrid has agreed to buy Propell Energy Technology, a VoltaGrid supplier, for an undisclosed amount. Propell offers a natural gas power generation platform for AI data centers. VoltaGrid plans to add two manufacturing plants at Propell’s facilities in Granbury, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb.

The investment and acquisition deals are expected to close in mid-2026.

Funds managed by Blackstone Tactical Opportunities are contributing to the $1 billion investment. William Nicholson, managing director of Blackstone, called VoltaGrid “a highly differentiated platform addressing one of the most important infrastructure needs of the AI era: reliable, rapidly deployable power. This investment is a strong example of Tac Opps’ focus on providing flexible, scaled capital to exceptional entrepreneurs and businesses operating in Blackstone’s highest-conviction investment themes.”

Nathan Ough, founder and CEO of VoltaGrid, said in a release that the Blackstone investment “is a powerful endorsement of the platform we have built and the role VoltaGrid is playing in delivering the energy infrastructure of the AI era.”

Last October, VoltaGrid and Halliburton said they had forged a partnership to supply power for data centers around the world, with the Middle East picked as the initial target. Two months later, the companies said they had arranged the manufacturing of 400 megawatts of natural gas power systems that’ll be delivered in 2028 to support new data centers in the Eastern Hemisphere.

Jeff Miller, president and CEO of Halliburton, said his company’s investment in VoltaGrid “reflects our shared focus on long-term solutions for the world’s most demanding power environments, and advances VoltaGrid’s ability to deliver reliable, distributed power at scale.”

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