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Houston biomaterials startup taps partner for commercial-scale production

next-gen news

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

listen in

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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Texas drivers continue to pump the brakes on EVs, shows new report

EV adoption

Even though Texas is home to Tesla, a major manufacturer of electric vehicles, motorists in the Lone Star State aren’t in the fast lane when it comes to getting behind the wheel of an EV.

U.S. Department of Energy data compiled by Visual Capitalist shows Texas has 689.9 EV registrations per 100,000 people, putting it in 20th place for EV adoption among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. A report released in 2023 by the University of Houston and Texas Southern University found that a little over 5 percent of Texans drove EVs.

California leads all states for EV adoption, with 3,025.6 registrations per 100,000 people, according to Visual Capitalist. In second place is Washington, with an EV adoption rate of 1,805.4 per 100,000.

A recent survey by AAA revealed lingering reluctance among Americans to drive all-electric vehicles.

In the survey, just 16 percent of U.S. adults reported being “very likely” or “likely” to buy an all-electric vehicle as their next car. That’s the lowest level of interest in EVs recorded by AAA since 1999. The share of consumers indicating they’d be “very unlikely” or “unlikely” to buy an EV rose to 63 percent, the highest level since 2022.

Factors cited by EV critics included:

  • High cost to repair batteries (62 percent).
  • High purchase price (59 percent).
  • Ineffective transportation for long-distance travel (57 percent).
  • Lack of convenient public charging stations (56 percent).
  • Fear of battery running out of power while driving (55 percent).

“Since AAA began tracking consumer interest in fully electric vehicles, we’ve observed fluctuations in enthusiasm,” said Doug Shupe, corporate communications manager for AAA Texas. “While automakers continue investing in electrification and expanding EV offerings, many drivers still express hesitation — often tied to concerns about cost, range, and charging infrastructure.”

18 Houston-based energy companies land on Forbes Global 2000 list

Forbes 2000

More than 60 Texas-based companies appear on Forbes’ 2025 list of the world’s 2,000 biggest publicly traded companies, and nearly half come from Houston, the majority in the energy sector.

Among Texas companies whose stock is publicly traded, Spring-based ExxonMobil is the highest ranked at No. 13 globally.

Rounding out Texas’ top five are Houston-based Chevron (No. 30), Dallas-based AT&T (No. 35), Austin-based Oracle (No. 66), and Austin-based Tesla (No. 69).

Ranking first in the world is New York City-based J.P. Morgan Chase.

Forbes compiled this year’s Global 2000 list using data from FactSet Research to analyze the biggest public companies based on four metrics: sales, profit, assets, and market value.

“The annual Forbes Global 2000 list features the companies shaping today’s global markets and moving them worldwide,” said Hank Tucker, a staff writer at Forbes. “This year’s list showcases how despite a complex geopolitical landscape, globalization has continued to fuel decades of economic growth, with the world’s largest companies more than tripling in size across multiple measures in the past 20 years.”

The U.S. topped the list with 612 companies, followed by China with 317 and Japan with 180.

Here are the rest of the Texas-based companies in the Forbes 2000, grouped by the location of their headquarters and followed by their global ranking.

Houston area (those in the energy sector are in bold)

  • ConocoPhillips (No. 105)
  • Phillips 66 (No. 276)
  • SLB (No. 296)
  • EOG Resources (No. 297)
  • Occidental Petroleum (No. 302)
  • Waste Management (No. 351)
  • Kinder Morgan (No. 370)
  • Hewlett Packard Enterprise (No. 379)
  • Baker Hughes (No. 403)
  • Cheniere Energy (No. 415)
  • Corebridge Financial (No. 424)
  • Sysco (No. 448)
  • Halliburton (No. 641)
  • Targa Resources (No. 651)
  • NRG Energy (No. 667)
  • Quanta Services (No. 722)
  • CenterPoint Energy (No. 783)
  • Coterra Energy (No. 1,138)
  • Crown Castle International (No. 1,146)
  • Westlake Corp. (No. 1,199)
  • APA Corp. (No. 1,467)
  • Comfort Systems USA (No. 1,629)
  • Group 1 Automotive (No. 1,653)
  • Talen Energy (No. 1,854)
  • Prosperity Bancshares (No. 1,855)
  • NOV (No. 1,980)

Austin area

  • Dell Technologies (No. 183)
  • Flex (No. 887)
  • Digital Realty Trust (No. 1,063)
  • CrowdStrike (No. 1,490)

Dallas-Fort Worth

  • Caterpillar (No. 118)
  • Charles Schwab (No. 124)
  • McKesson (No. 195)
  • D.R. Horton (No. 365)
  • Texas Instruments (No. 374)
  • Vistra Energy (No. 437)
  • CBRE (No. 582)
  • Kimberly-Clark (No. 639)
  • Tenet Healthcare (No. 691)
  • American Airlines (No. 834)
  • Southwest Airlines (No. 844)
  • Atmos Energy (No. 1,025)
  • Builders FirstSource (No. 1,039)
  • Copart (No. 1,062)
  • Fluor (No. 1,153)
  • Jacobs Solutions (1,232)
  • Globe Life (1,285)
  • AECOM (No. 1,371)
  • Lennox International (No. 1,486)
  • HF Sinclair (No. 1,532)
  • Invitation Homes (No. 1,603)
  • Celanese (No. 1,845)
  • Tyler Technologies (No. 1,942)

San Antonio

  • Valero Energy (No. 397)
  • Cullen/Frost Bankers (No. 1,560)

Midland

  • Diamondback Energy (No. 471)
  • Permian Resources (No. 1,762)
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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.

Hydrogen Technology Expo expected to bring largest event yet to NRG Center

where to be

The Hydrogen Technology Expo North America returns to NRG Center this month, June 25-26, and is slated to be the largest yet with an expected 10,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, 200 speakers and more than 100 hours of content.

The 2025 event will feature cutting-edge technologies, interactive panel discussions and networking opportunities while targeting industries looking to adopt hydrogen and fuel cell technology to help decarbonize their sectors. The event will be co-located with the Carbon Capture Technology Expo North America.

The 2025 expo will introduce the new Ammonia Zone, a dedicated area fostering collaboration with industries leveraging ammonia as a key component in the hydrogen economy. It will also offer one- and two-day passes for the first time.

The expo is divided into five tracks:

  • Strategic forum
  • Hydrogen and alternative fuel production
  • Infrastructure and integration
  • Mobility and propulsion systems
  • Carbon capture, utilization and storage

Speakers include Martin Perez, former associate director for carbon capture at the office of clean energy demonstrations for the U.S. Department of Energy; Frank Wolak, president and CEO of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association; Seema Santhakumar, hydrogen market development leader –Americas at Baker Hughes; Rich Byrnes, chief infrastructure officer for Port Houston; and many others. A full list of exhibitors can be found here.

Technologies on display will include storage systems, industrial plant technologies, liquefaction technologies, advanced materials and composites, gasification technology, simulation and evaluation, safety systems, hydrogen fuels, hydrogen injectors, line assemblies, fuel-cell control units and more.

“The Hydrogen Technology Expo offers industry leaders a valuable opportunity to network and stay informed about the latest developments in the rapidly evolving world of hydrogen,” Susan Shifflett, Executive Director at Texas Hydrogen Alliance, said. “We’re a proud partner of the show.”

Entry to the exhibition hall is free of charge. Passes start at $450. Find more information about how to register here.

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