Camilo Mejia, CEO and founder of Houston-based Enovate Upstream, has big plans for increasing efficiency across the oil and gas sector. Photo courtesy of Enovate

A Houston energy tech company announced a new artificial intelligence platform that aims to digitize the oil and gas sector to provide the best efficiency and return on investment at every stage of the supply chain cycle — from drilling and production to completion.

Enovate Upstream's exponential growth, says Camilo Mejia, CEO and founder of the company, has already led to two new strategic partnerships in the works with European and Latin American companies.

"We see a better future in the oil and gas industry," Mejia shares in an interview with InnovationMap. "Our team worked in various roles in O&G, and we don't think the industry will end up as some people may think. The future will be different and digitized, we are just here to facilitate that transition to give back to the industry that gave us a lot."

The company's proprietary cloud-based ADA AI digital ecosystem is challenging the assumptions of the industry by using new technology powered artificial intelligence to provide historical data with AI to give real-time production forecasting. Thanks to the cloud, users can access the information anywhere in the world.

The new platform combines three models — digital drilling, digital completions, and digital production — that provide precise data that can be customized to the client's needs, integrating into an existing platform easily for a real-time view of their return on investment and carbon emission output.

Mejia shares more about his company's growth and what goals Enovate Upstream is setting to continue the course of digitization in the oil and gas industry in the Q&A with InnovationMap.

InnovationMap: What inspired Enovate Upstream’s focus on artificial intelligence technology for the upstream value chain?

Camilo Mejia: For the past five or six years, there's been talk of digitalization, and the value of data. The next level is not the value of the data, it's about the automation, how you can improve operations, and how you can help customers to make better decisions. Every single technology that we are developing here is about the return of investment.

Our AI concept is about the physics behind the data. We are accelerating digital adoption by properly showing the tangible value of the technology by speaking the same language and showing the value from the oil and gas perspective, which was one of the challenges other AI technology faced to break into the industry before. Our artificial intelligence component upgrades this technology to optimize the industry while integrating it with this digital ecosystem all in one place. The digital ecosystem we're building covers the entire value chain.

One of the challenges the industry faces is around capital allocation — how we can help customers to properly allocate capital into projects, which is a fundamental way we forecast new projects. Another challenge is the size of the organization that ranges from corporations to small businesses. They have many opportunities to improve cost but that varies across companies.

We are overcoming that challenge in order to develop a technology that can show the inefficiencies between the sizes. The third challenge is the adoption of digital technology. There are two different ways of deploying artificial intelligence. One is data-driven analysis, data-driven models, or data trading — this is the foundation.

IM: What fundamental changes do you think your cloud-based ADA technology can provide across every stage of the value chain?

CM: The biggest change we have in the platform is revising the workflow based on the production size. We use the data the customers already have, to develop a model that changes the way we forecast production in the industry. Before you deploy the capital and execute the project, you are going to have a better idea of the maximum potential profitability, so you can make better decisions at any stage from that point.

One of the inspirations for this was Tesla. The automotive industry was failing to provide a self-driving vehicle because it was using mathematical approaches, but Tesla overcame that challenge using data of millions of drivers to drive and park the cars efficiently, optimizing the process.

We are doing exactly the same, which is applying mathematical equations only for drilling forecasts, production forecasts, and using the data from the wells to see how the projects are behaving. We also integrate the modules so every single module is communicating with each other at every stage to correlate back to a production forecast to set your targets or operation based on that expected return of investment.

Our concept is about the return of investment, in order to develop the ROI concept, you got to plan the events right and the varying size production, that becomes the second component. The third component is about optimization of operations, which is about automation to improve operations and therefore decision-making. We are developing technology that has a very modern interface to automate operations in a more intuitive way so customers can be independent in the process and make the best decisions.

IM: At the moment, there is a need for virtual connections. How does your technology allow certain hands-on tasks to be handled remotely?

CM: In many ways, we have a big project in the Gulf of Mexico. We place technologies that we are using in today's market and deploy a platform that customers can use independently. We can also automate operations to the cloud by just deploying, trimming the data out of the field straight to the cloud so that people in the field can actually use the AI component to optimize operations. We don't require face to face interaction using the cloud environment.

Since the coronavirus these digital components have been on demand, we have grown about 500 percent from the end of Q1 and into the middle of Q2. We are experiencing an acceleration in the adoption of digital technology, but the ability to deploy the technology through the cloud has been instrumental in gaining more traction in the market. As a matter of fact, just as an indicator, we have been hiring people since the start of the coronavirus.

IM: Enovate Upstream started a year ago since then you’ve experienced exponential growth. What are a couple of goals that the company will achieve by the end of the year?

CM: Our strategy is focused on the next level for the company, which is securing funding round with investors in London. We are also aiming to facilitate the deployment of our technology globally. We are focusing on the United States and Latin America, but we hope to expand our funding round to Europe and the Middle East.

Our other goal lies with our partnerships, we are working through a distribution channel, through larger service companies that are facilitating the commercialization of the technology. The focus is on enabling these companies to properly support the customers by doing more technology integration and increasing the value creation.

The next goal is obviously to sustain the company, even though we have been growing, there is a lot of uncertainty in the market, and we are focusing on building the culture of the company, which is challenging in a virtual space.

IM: How has Enovate Upstream navigated an unstable market amid your rapid growth?

CM: That's a good question. I think the lesson is that you can always end up in a different direction. Coronavirus is having a big impact on many businesses, often negatively, but for us, it was instrumental to realize the full potential of the technology we were developing.

We saw that the activity was going from operations to the financial sector with companies selling assets to sustain their business. There were a lot of customers trying to decide what kind of wells they need to continue producing, so that was a market that we didn't capture before.

We grew the technology in that direction by starting a second company called Energy Partners. We created a joint venture with some producers in South Texas to make better decisions in asset acquisition. It was instrumental for us to realize the full potential on the finance side, as opposed to operations where the initial focus was.

We have assets in South Texas now and from a technology standpoint, it's the ideal way to test our analytic technology. We use our technology to properly evaluate the return of investment to make decisions about acquiring assets to optimize the operations and increase production. We have the opportunity to prove the technology with our investments, so we can actually build trust with customers. We are 100 percent sure that the technology works the way we say it works.

IM: There’s a huge emphasis on sustainability in the energy industry. How does your technology reduce carbon emissions?

CM: There are two kinds of components here. The first one is about optimizing operations — personnel transportation at the field level. We have studied calculations of what carbon dioxide output looks like to reduce it in terms of optimizing transportation, technology, and contributing to innovative ideas. We are currently initiating a feasibility study on a carbon capture technology, and working with customers to provide value in the technology in various aspects.

IM: I see several partnerships have already begun. Are you looking for more and what role do these partnerships play for your business?

CM: We have two partnerships about to close. One is with Telefonica, a Spanish telecommunications company, and another with Pluspetrol, an Argentinian production company. Telefonica provides cybersecurity services to oil and gas companies, we actually work with them to deploy our technology in Latin America and Europe. They provide the cloud and cybersecurity component while we provide the AI component.

In terms of our technology development, Pluspetrol has been one of our partners from the very beginning and we continue developing more technologies with this particular customer. They provide us with access to real data and real operational conditions that facilitate technological innovation.

------

This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Ad Placement 300x100
Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Houston space company lands latest NASA deal to advance lunar logistics

To The Moon

Houston-based space exploration, infrastructure, and services company Intuitive Machines has secured about $2.5 million from NASA to study challenges related to carrying cargo on the company’s lunar lander and hauling cargo on the moon. The lander will be used for NASA’s Artemis missions to the moon and eventually to Mars.

“Intuitive Machines has been methodically working on executing lunar delivery, data transmission, and infrastructure service missions, making us uniquely positioned to provide strategies and concepts that may shape lunar logistics and mobility solutions for the Artemis generation,” Intuitive Machines CEO Steve Altemus says in a news release.

“We look forward to bringing our proven expertise together to deliver innovative solutions that establish capabilities on the [moon] and place deeper exploration within reach.”

Intuitive Machines will soon launch its lunar lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket to deliver NASA technology and science projects, along with commercial payloads, to the moon’s Mons Mouton plateau. Lift-off will happen at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida within a launch window that starts in late February. It’ll be the lander’s second trip to the moon.

In September, Intuitive Machines landed a deal with NASA that could be worth more than $4.8 billion.

Under the contract, Intuitive Machines will supply communication and navigation services for missions in the “near space” region, which extends from the earth’s surface to beyond the moon.

The five-year deal includes an option to add five years to the contract. The initial round of NASA funding runs through September 2029.

Play it back: Houston home tech startup begins 2025 with fresh funding

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 272

One of the dozen or so Houston startups kicking of the new year with fresh funding is SmartAC.com, a company that's designed a platform that enables contractors in the HVAC and plumbing industries to monitor, manage, and optimize their maintenance memberships through advanced sensors, AI-driven diagnostics, and proactive alerts.

Last month, the SmartAC.com raised a follow-on round with support from local investor Mercury to continue growth and expansion of the product, which has evolved on many ways since the company launched in 2020, emerging from stealth with $10 million raised in a series A. In a May 2023 interview for the Houston Innovators Podcast, Founder and CEO Josh Teekell explained how he embraced the power of a pivot.

The company's sensors can monitor all aspects of air conditioning units and report back any issues, meaning homeowners have quicker and less costly repairs. While SmartAC.com started with providing the service and tech to homeowners directly, Teekell says he's had a greater interest in working with plumbers and HVAC companies who then deploy the technology to their customers.

"It became quite evident that homeowners don't care about air conditioning really at all until their system breaks," Teekell says on the show. "The technology is really built around giving those contractors as another way to gain a customer relationship and keep it."

Revisit the podcast episode below where Teekell talks about SmartAC.com's last raise.

SmartAC.com's previous round in 2023 — a $22 million series B — was used grow its team that goes out to deploy the technology and train the contractors on the platform.

"We've been very fortunate to get some of the biggest names in Houston on our cap table," Teekell says in the May 2023 conversation. "Since we're raising a bunch of money locally, everyone understands what a pain air conditioning can be."

Houston biotech company tests hard-to-fight cancer therapeutics

fighting cancer

A Houston-based, female-founded biotech company has developed a treatment that could prove to be an effective therapy for a rare blood cancer.

Cellenkos Therapeutics has completed promising Phase 1b testing of its Treg cell therapy, CK0804, in the fight against myelofibrosis. According to a news release from the Cellenkos team, the use of its cord-blood-derived therapeutics could signal a paradigm shift for the treatment of this hard-to-fight cancer.

Cellenkos was founded by MD Anderson Cancer Center physician and professor Simrit Parmar. Her research at the hospital displayed the ability of a unique subset of T cells’ capability to home in on a patient’s bone marrow, restoring immune balance, and potentially halting disease progression.

Myelofibrosis has long been treated primarily with JAK (Janus Kinase) inhibitors, medications that help to block inflammatory enzymes. They work by suppressing the immune response to the blood cancer, but don’t slow the progression of the malady. And they’re not effective for every patient.

“There is a significant need for new therapeutic options for patients living with myelofibrosis who have suboptimal responses to approved JAK inhibitors,” Parmar says. “We are greatly encouraged by the safety profile and early signs of efficacy observed in this patient cohort and look forward to continuing our evaluation of the clinical potential of CK0804 in our planned expansion cohort.”

The expansion cohort is currently enrolling patients with myelofibrosis. What exactly are sufferers dealing with? Myelofibrosis is a chronic disease that causes bone marrow to form scar tissue. This makes it difficult for the body to produce normal blood cells, leaving patients with fatigue, spleen enlargement and night sweats.

Myelofibrosis is rare, with just 16,000 to 18,500 people affected in the United States. But for patients who don’t respond well to JAKs, the prognosis could mean a shorter span than the six-year median survival rate outlined for the disease by Cleveland Clinic.

Helping myelofibrosis patients to thrive isn’t the only goal for Cellenkos right now.

The company seeks to aid people with rare conditions, particularly inflammatory and autoimmune disorders, with the use of CK0804, but also other candidates including one known as CK0801. The latter drug has shown promising efficacy in aplastic anemia, including transfusion independence in treated patients.

The company closed its $15 million series A round led by BVCF Management, based in Shanghai, in 2021. Read more here.