Houston organizations team up to accelerate startups with low-carbon solutions

greentown hou

A new six-month accelerator program is looking to move the needle on the energy transition. Photo via greentownlabs.com

Attention, innovators: A new initiative in Houston is searching for startups whose offerings can help reduce global carbon emissions.

The Low-Carbon Hydrogen Accelerator is a partnership involving Greentown Labs, the Electric Power Research Institute, Shell Oil, the City of Houston, and New York University's Urban Future Lab. The accelerator is seeking applications from startups that are advancing low-carbon hydrogen production, enhancing hydrogen storage and distribution, or providing business models for management of hydrogen supply chains. Applications are due February 9, 2022.

"If we can improve the devices and processes that will be used to make, transport, and store clean hydrogen in the future, it can become a cost-competitive fuel. At the same time, these advances can improve the capacity factor of renewable generation, producing multiple economic and climate benefits," Pat Sapinsley, managing director of cleantech initiatives at the Urban Future Lab, says in a news release.

The six-month accelerator will enable startups to collaborate with the Electric Power Research Institute, utilities, and Shell on tech development, feasibility studies, pilot projects, and other low-carbon efforts.

The institute and Shell will provide startups two routes within the accelerate: a path for validation of their technology and a path for demonstration of their technology.

"Accelerating low-carbon hydrogen technologies is essential to achieving global net-zero targets by 2050," says Neva Espinoza, the institute's vice president of energy supply and low-carbon resources.

Shell foresees hydrogen playing a bigger role in hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as heavy-duty trucking, marine, aviation, chemicals, steel, and cement. Julie Ferland, vice president of innovation excellence at Houston-based Shell Oil, says programs such as the new accelerator will be critical to fostering low-carbon energy.

Earlier this year, after visiting Greentown Labs' Houston location, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and the U.S. Department of Energy launched the Hydrogen Energy Earthshot to reduce the cost of clean hydrogen by 80 percent to $1 per kilogram by 2030.

"As the Energy Capital of the World, I believe it is our responsibility to continue Houston's legacy of energy innovation and develop the technologies and practices needed to decarbonize the global energy sector," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says. "Houston has the skilled workforce and infrastructure to develop clean hydrogen at scale, and Greentown Labs' Low-Carbon Hydrogen Accelerator is a great example of the kind of partnerships we need to make it happen."

Greentown Labs is the largest climatech startup incubator in North America. The Somerville, Massachusetts-based incubator recently opened its Houston location.

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UH lands $11.8M for first-of-its-kind early language development study

speech funding

Researchers at the University of Houston have secured an $11.8 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of early language development.

Led by Elena Grigorenko, the Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen Distinguished Professor of Psychology, and research professor Jack Fletcher, the study will follow 3,600 children aged 18 to 24 months to uncover how language skills develop at this critical stage and why some children experience delays that can influence later growth.

The NIH funding will also support the development of the new national Clinical Research Center on Developmental Language Disorders at UH, which aims to bring experts from psychology, education, health and measurement sciences to study how children learn language.

“This will be the first national study to estimate how common late talking is using a large, representative sample of Houston toddlers,” Grigorenko said in a news release. “By following these children as they grow, we hope to better understand the developmental pathways that can lead to conditions such as developmental language disorder and autism.”

UH’s team will partner with the pediatric clinic network at Texas Children’s Hospital, where children will be screened for early language development, allowing researchers to identify those who show signs of delayed speech. Next, researchers will follow the cohort through early childhood to examine how language abilities evolve and how early delays may lead to later challenges.

The Clinical Research Center on Developmental Language Disorders will be the 14th national research center established at UH, and will include researchers from multiple UH departments, as well as partners at Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Center for Learning Disorders.

“This level of investment from the National Institutes of Health reflects the significance of this work to address a complex challenge affecting children, families and communities,” Claudia Neuhauser, vice president for research at UH, said in a news release. “By bringing together experts from multiple disciplines and partnering with major health systems across the region, the project reflects our commitment to advancing discoveries that impact our community.”

Rice Alliance names Houston healthtech exec as first head of platform

new hire

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship has named its first head of platform.

Houston entrepreneur Laura Neder stepped into the newly created role last month, according to an email from Rice Alliance. Neder will focus on building and growing Houston’s Venture Advantage Platform.

The emerging platform, which is being promoted by Rice Alliance and the Ion, aims to connect founders with the "people, capital and expertise they need to scale."

"I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to make an innovation ecosystem more navigable, more connected, and more useful for founders," Neder said in a LinkedIn post. "I’m grateful for the opportunity to do that work at Rice Alliance, alongside a team with a long history of supporting entrepreneurship and innovation."

"Houston has the talent, institutions, and industry base to create real advantage for founders," she added. "I’m looking forward to listening, learning, and building stronger pathways across the ecosystem."

Neder most recently served as CEO of Houston-based Careset, where she helped bring the Medicare data startup to commercialization. Prior to that, Neder served as COO of Houston-based telemedicine startup 2nd.MD, which was acquired for $460 million by Accolade in 2021.

"Laura brings a rare combination of founder empathy, operational experience and ecosystem leadership," Rice Alliance shared.

Neder and Rice Alliance also shared that the organization is hiring developers to design the new Venture Advantage Platform. Learn more here.

Elon Musk's SpaceX files initial paperwork to sell shares to the public

Incoming IPO

Elon Musk's space exploration company has filed preliminary paperwork to sell shares to the public, according to two sources familiar with the filing, a blockbuster offering that would likely rank as the biggest ever and could make its founder the world's first trillionaire.

A SpaceX IPO promises to be one of the biggest Wall Street events of the year, with several investment banks lining up to help raise tens of billions to fund Musk's ambitions to set up a base on the moon, put datacenters the size of several football fields in orbit and possibly one day send a man to Mars.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly about the confidential registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

SpaceX did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

Exactly how much SpaceX plans to raise has not been disclosed but the figure is reportedly as much as $75 billion. At that level, the offering would easily eclipse the $29 billion that Saudi Aramco raised in its IPO in 2019.

The offering, coming possibly in June, could value all the shares of SpaceX at $1.5 trillion, nearly double what the company was valued in December when some minority owners sold their stakes, according to research firm Pitchbook, before an acquisition that increased its size.

Musk owns 42% of the SpaceX now, according to Pitchbook, though that figure will change with the IPO when new owners are issued shares. In any case, he is likely to pierce the trillion dollar mark because he is already close. Forbes magazine estimates Musk's net worth at roughly $823 billion.

In addition to making reusable rockets to hurl astronauts and hardware into orbit, SpaceX owns Starlink, the world’s largest satellite communications company. The company also recently brought under its roof two other Musk businesses, social media platform X, formerly Twitter, and artificial intelligence business, xAI, in a controversial transaction because both the seller and the buyer were controlled by him.

SpaceX has become the biggest commercial launch company in its industry, responsible for sending payloads into orbit for customers across the globe, but has also benefited from big taxpayer spending. That has raised conflicts of interest issues given that Musk was the biggest donor to President Donald Trump's campaign and is still a big backer.

In the past five years, SpaceX won $6 billion in contracts from NASA, the Defense Department and other U.S. government agencies, according to USAspending.gov.

Among current SpaceX owners is Donald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son. He owns a shares through 1789 Capital. That venture capital firm made him a partner shortly after his father won the presidency for a second time and has been buying up federal contractors seeking to win taxpayer money ever since.

The White House and Trump himself have repeatedly denied there are any conflicts of interest between his role as president and his family's businesses.

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