Houston cleantech incubator adds 3 startups in its latest cohort

now accelerating

Halliburton Labs has announced its next set of clean energy tech companies. Photo courtesy of Halliburton

Three climatetech companies will be joining Halliburton Labs, a Houston-based energy transition incubator.

Chemergy, EVA, and Novamera will be joining Halliburton Labs, the company announced last week. The three startups will receive technical support, access to Halliburton's global connections, and more from the program.

“We are excited to help accelerate three innovative companies that emerged from our recent Finalists Pitch Day,” says Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, in a news release. “We will work closely with these founders and their teams to achieve strategic, operational, and financial milestones with the most efficient use of their time and capital."

Halliburton Labs launched in the summer of 2020, and now has over a dozen companies working on climatetech solutions in its portfolio. Applications are now open for the next cohort on the Halliburton Labs website and are due by April 22, for the May 20 Finalists Pitch Day.

"In less than two years, we've established productive new relationships with fifteen companies scaling solutions across a breadth of markets to expand our understanding of new value chains,” Winger continues.

Here's a little more about the three new additions to the program.

Chemergy 

Miami-based Chemergy has created a patented HyBrTec process is designed to convert wet organic and plastic wastes into green hydrogen, thereby eliminating the liability and consequences of the wastes by converting them into fuel.

“We see a great opportunity to collaborate with Halliburton Labs' industrial experience to ensure our systems can be installed and operated safely in communities to solve waste disposal issues, improve resiliency and sustainability, and produce cleaner fuel locally,” says Melahn Parker, president of Chemergy.

EVA 

EVA, a New York headquartered company with a presence on four continents, is increasing scalability for the drone industry with its ground infrastructure and operating system solutions that help customers perform inspections, make deliveries, recharge, and monitor remote operations without local manpower.

“The Halliburton Labs ‘scalerator' model comes at the right time for EVA as we accelerate commercialization," says Olivier Le Lann, founder and CEO. "We're excited about the ways Halliburton's global market and industrial expertise will accelerate our trajectory."

Novamera 

Canadian company Novamera has developed proprietary navigation tools and software that enables climate smart, surgical mining and unlocks value in certain mineral deposits found worldwide that are otherwise uneconomic due to their small scale and geometry.

“We are pleased to join Halliburton Labs' accelerator program," says Novamera Co-founder and CEO Dustin Angelo in a news release. "Their engineering expertise and business experience will help us accelerate the development of our technology and scale our business to bring a more sustainable method of mining to the world.”

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Rice University lands $14M state grant to open Center for Space Technologies

on a mission

Rice University’s Space Institute soon will be home to the newly created Center for Space Technologies.

On Feb. 17, the Texas Space Commission approved a nearly $14.2 million grant for the Rice project. The Center for Space Technologies will target:

  • Research and development
  • Technology transfer and innovation
  • Statewide partnerships
  • Workforce development training
  • Space-focused education programs

The goal of the new center “is to fulfill an articulated need for research, workforce development, and industry collaboration,” said Kemah communications and marketing executive Gwen Griffin, chair of the commission.

State Rep. Greg Bonnen, a Friendswood Republican, authored the bill that set up the Texas Space Commission.

Since being authorized in 2023, the commission has funded 24 projects, with Rice and Houston-area companies accounting for nearly $75 million in grants to back space-related initiatives.

The grant to Rice brings the TSC's total investment to $150 million, fully committing the entire state appropriation from the Texas Legislature in 2023.

Other local companies that have received grants over the years include Aegis Aerospace, Axiom Space, Intuitive Machines, Starlab Space and Venus Aerospace.

The commission also awarded $7 million to Blue Origin earlier this month. See a list of the 24 awards here.

Waymo self-driving robotaxis have officially launched in Houston

Waymo has arrived

Waymo will begin dispatching its robotaxis in four more cities in Texas and Florida, expanding the territory covered by its fleet of self-driving cars to 10 major U.S. metropolitan markets.

The move into Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando, Florida, announced Tuesday, February 24, widens Waymo's early lead in autonomous driving while rival services from Tesla and the Amazon-owned Zoox are still testing their vehicles in only a few U.S. cities.

In contrast, Waymo's robotaxis already provide more than 400,000 weekly trips in the six metropolitan areas where they have been transporting passengers: Phoenix, the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, and Austin, Texas.

Waymo operates its ride-hailing service through its own app in all the U.S. cities except Atlanta and Austin, where its robotaxis can only be summoned through Uber's ride-hailing service.

The expansion into four more markets marks a significant step toward Waymo's goal to surpass 1 million weekly paid trips by the end of 2026. Without identifying where its robotaxis will be available next, Waymo is targeting a list of eight other cities that include Las Vegas, Washington, Detroit and Boston while signaling its first overseas availability is likely to be London.

To help pay for more robotaxis, Waymo recently raised $16 billion as part of the financial infusion that puts the value of the company at $126 billion. The valuation fueled speculation that Waymo may eventually be spun off from its corporate parent Alphabet, where it began as a secret project within Google in 2009.

Although Waymo is opening up in four more cities, its robotaxis initially will only be made available to a limited number of people with its ride-hailing app in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando before the service will be available to all comers in those markets.

Tech giant Apple doubles down on Houston with new production facility

coming soon

Tech giant Apple announced that it will double the size of its Houston manufacturing footprint as it brings production of its Mac mini to the U.S. for the first time.

The company plans to begin production of its compact desktop computer at a new factory at Apple’s Houston manufacturing site later this year. The move is expected to create thousands of jobs in the Houston area, according to Apple.

Last year, the Cupertino, California-based company announced it would open a 250,000-square-foot factory to produce servers for its data centers in the Houston area. The facility was originally slated to open in 2026, but Apple reports it began production ahead of schedule in 2025.

The addition of the Mac mini operations at the site will bring the footprint to about 500,000 square feet, the Houston Chronicle reports. The New York Times previously reported that Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Foxconn would be involved in the Houston factory.

Apple also announced plans to open a 20,000-square-foot Advanced Manufacturing Center in Houston later this year. The project is currently under construction and will "provide hands-on training in advanced manufacturing techniques to students, supplier employees, and American businesses of all sizes," according to the announcement. Apple opened a similar Apple Manufacturing Academy in Detroit last year.

Apple doubles down on Houston with new production facility, training center Photo courtesy Apple.

“Apple is deeply committed to the future of American manufacturing, and we’re proud to significantly expand our footprint in Houston with the production of Mac mini starting later this year,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said in the news release. “We began shipping advanced AI servers from Houston ahead of schedule, and we’re excited to accelerate that work even further.”

Apple's Houston expansion is part of a $600 billion commitment the company made to the U.S. in 2025.

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