Houston startup Collide secures $5M to grow energy-focused AI platform

Fresh Funds

Houston-based Collide plans to use its seed funding to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform for the energy industry. Photo via Getty Images

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

---

This story originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

Digital Wildcatters just raised $2.5 million in funding. Image courtesy

Houston startup focused on cultivating the future workforce of the energy industry raises $2.5M seed funding

money moves

With $2.5 million in fresh funding, Digital Wildcatters is on its way to keep empowering the evolving energy workforce.

Digital Wildcatters, a Houston company that's providing a community for the next generation of energy professionals, has closed its seed plus funding round at $2.5 million. The round by energy industry veteran Chuck Yates, who also hosts his podcast "Chuck Yates Needs a Job" on the Digital Wildcatters' podcast network.

"Our industry's survival depends on recruiting the next generation of energy workers. We must adapt to their digital, content-rich world, as we currently lag behind, like a VHS tape in a Netflix world. Digital Wildcatters is our path to modernization," Yates, based in Richmond, Texas, says in the news release.

Diamondback Energy and ProFrac also contributed to the round, which closed on December 1 and follows up on the company's $2 million seed round raised from angel investors in 2021.

The fresh funding will go toward further development and commercialization of Collide, an energy industry professional networking app, which launched this fall. The app aims to help advance and support the industry through professional development connection, job portal, and an AI-backed content search engine for industry information.

"Our mission is to empower the next generation of energy professionals to advance their careers and collaboratively address the global energy crisis," Collin McLelland, co-founder and CEO of Digital Wildcatters, says in the release. "We are incredibly grateful to have an investor base that not only believes in our vision but also supports our endeavor to craft innovative products that will redefine the future of the energy industry."

McLelland co-founded Digital Wildcatters with Jake Corley. The two started the Oil and Gas Startups podcast in 2019.

This Houston-based media company launched a networking platform to help solve the energy crisis. Screenshots via apps.apple.com

Houston startup launches networking app for next-generation energy workforce

get connected

A Houston-based media organization dedicated to covering the energy industry has officially launched the beta program of their networking app.

After producing zanily named energy podcasts like “Big Digital Energy” and “What the Funk,” Digital Wildcatters is trying to bridge the hiring gap in the energy industry. By providing a platform for individuals to get their questions answered by experts and a space for companies seeking qualified talent, Collide is structured to ignite the next generation of energy innovators. Collide is currently available for users in both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.

Collin McLelland, co-founder and CEO of Digital Wildcatters, says he aims to expand their professional community through this networking platform. Rather than being a transition away from Digital Wildcatters’ roots as a digital media organization McLelland explains Collide is an integration of the community they have built through podcasts and events into an interactive platform.

“If you look at what we’ve done historically with Digital Wildcatters, we’ve built an extremely engaged community of energy professionals — it’s a next generation community, very young forward thinking professionals that are working towards solving the world’s energy crisis,” McLelland shares.

The roll out of Collide has been intentionally gradual, McLelland says because they want to shape the user experience based on feedback from ongoing focus groups. Currently they have about 1,000 users and are examining how they can make the app valuable to them before providing the platform to a wider audience.

McLelland says there are two major issues within the energy sector that Collide hopes to address — a lack of knowledge about energy verticals and difficulty recruiting talent. McLelland attributes the information gap to how expansive the energy sector is, incorporating beyond oil and gas, everything from renewables to lithium mining. Similarly, by zeroing in on the energy sector, McLelland believes Collide can draw upon the network of talent Digital Wildcatters has already cultivated to tackle recruiting issues.

“What we really see with our platform is being able to bring people together where if you want to find a piece of information, you need to find a subject matter expert, or if you want to find your next job, it happens on the Collide platform,” McLelland says.

Unlike other hiring platforms, Collide offers users the opportunity to look for information about the energy sector by integrating all of Digital Wildcatters’ podcasts and videos into a content search engine. This program is part of their DW Insight subscription product which also has a startup database with overviews of various companies, from their demos to a portal to contact them.

“We hope someday that we’ll have this knowledge base that can be searched and queried to where if you want to find out any piece of information, you’ll be able to find it on (DW Insight),” McLelland explains.

McLelland co-founded Digital Wildcatters with Jake Corley. The two started the Oil and Gas Startups podcast in 2019.

------

This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

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.

View All Listings