Overheard: Houston's top energy transition founders explain their biggest challenges

Houston Innovation Awards

Clockwise from top left: Sean Kelly of Amperon, Dianna Liu of ARIXTechnologies, Matthew Dawson of Elementium Materials, Vibhu Sharma of InnoVent Renewables, Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems, and Emma Konet of Tierra Climate. Photos courtesy

From finding funding to navigating the pace of traditional oil and gas company tech adoption, energy transition companies face their fair share of challenges.

This year's Houston Innovation Awards finalists in the Energy Transition category explained what their biggest challenge has been and how they've overcome it. See what they said below, and make sure to secure your tickets to the Nov. 14 event to see which of these finalists win the award.

"The evolving nature of the energy industry presents opportunities to solve some of our industry's greatest challenges. At Amperon we help optimize grid reliability and stability with the power of AI demand forecasting."

— Sean Kelly, CEO of Amperon, an AI platform powering the smart grid of the future

"The biggest challenge in leading an energy transition-focused startup has been balancing the urgency for sustainable solutions with the slow pace of change in traditional industries like oil and gas. Many companies are cautious about adopting new technologies, especially when it comes to integrating sustainability initiatives. We overcame this by positioning our solutions not just as environmentally friendly, but as tools that improve safety, efficiency, and cost savings. By aligning our value proposition with their operational goals and demonstrating real, measurable benefits, we were able to gain traction and drive adoption in industries that are traditionally resistant to change."

— Dianna Liu, CEO of ARIXTechnologies, an integrated robotics and data analytics company that delivers inspection services through its robotics platforms

"Scaling up production of hard tech is a major challenge. Thankfully, we recruited top-notch talent with experience in technology scale-up and chemical processes. In addition, we've begun building partnerships with some of the world's largest chemical manufacturers in our space who are excited to be a part of our journey and could rapidly accelerate our go to market strategy. We have significant demand for our product as early as 2025, so partnering with these companies to scale-up will bring our technology to market years ahead of doing it alone."

— Matthew Dawson, CEO of Elementium Materials, a battery technology with liquid electrolyte solutions

"Our pyrolysis reactor is a proprietary design that was developed during Covid. We ran simulations to prove that it works, but it was not easy to test it in a pilot facility, let alone scaling it up. We managed ... to run our pilot plant studies, while working with them remotely. We proved that our reactor worked and produced high quality products. Later, we built our own pilot plant R&D facility to continue running tests and optimizing the process. Then, there was the challenge of scaling it up to commercial size. ... We put together a task force of four different companies to come together to design and build this complex reactor in record time."

— Vibhu Sharma, CEO of InnoVent Renewables, a startup with proprietary continuous pyrolysis technology that converts waste tires, plastics, and biomass into valuable fuels and chemicals

"Energy storage and geothermal power generation are capital-intensive infrastructure projects, requiring investors with a deep commitment and the patience in terms of years to allow the technology to be developed and proven in the field. One challenge is finding that niche of investors with the vision to join our journey. We have succeeded in raising our $30 million series A with these types of investors, whom we’re confident will continue the journey as we scale."

— Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, an energy company focused on developing and deploying advanced geothermal technologies to provide reliable power and sustainable energy storage solutions regardless of geography

"The biggest challenge we've faced has been to bring together massive independent power producers on one side who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into grid infrastructure with multi- national tech giants on the other that don't have experience working much with energy storage. As a startup with only four employees, gaining credibility with these players was critical. We overcame this hurdle by becoming the preeminent thought leader on storage emissions, through publishing white papers, discussing the issues on podcasts, and (more)."

— Emma Konet, CTO of TierraClimate, a software provider that helps grid-scale batteries reduce carbon emissions

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

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This week's roundup of Houston innovators includes Emma Konet of Tierra Climate, Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems, and Clemmie Martin of The Cannon. Photos courtesy

3 female Houston innovators to know this week

who's who

Editor's note: Welcome to another Monday edition of Innovators to Know. Today I'm introducing you to three Houstonians to read up about — three individuals behind recent innovation and startup news stories in Houston as reported by InnovationMap. Learn more about them and their recent news below by clicking on each article.

Emma Konet, co-founder and CTO of Tierra Climate

Emma Konet, co-founder and CTO of Tierra Climate, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

If the energy transition is going to be successful, the energy storage space needs to be equipped to support both the increased volume of energy needed and new energies. And Emma Konet and her software company, Tierra Climate, are targeting one part of the equation: the market.

"To me, it's very clear that we need to build a lot of energy storage in order to transition the grid," Konet says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The problems that I saw were really on the market side of things." Read more.

Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems

Houston-based Sage Geosystems announced the first close of $17 million round led by Chesapeake Energy Corp. Photo courtesy of Sage

A Houston geothermal startup has announced the close of its series A round of funding.

Houston-based Sage Geosystems announced the first close of $17 million round led by Chesapeake Energy Corp. The proceeds aim to fund its first commercial geopressured geothermal system facility, which will be built in Texas in Q4 of 2024. According to the company, the facility will be the first of its kind.

“The first close of our Series A funding and our commercial facility are significant milestones in our mission to make geopressured geothermal system technologies a reality,” Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems, says. Read more.

Clemmie Martin, chief of staff at The Cannon

With seven locations across the Houston area, The Cannon's digital technology allows its members a streamlined connection. Photo courtesy of The Cannon

After collaborating over the years, The Cannon has acquired a Houston startup's digital platform technology to become a "physical-digital hybrid" community.

Village Insights, a Houston startup, worked with The Cannon to create and launch its digital community platform Cannon Connect. Now, The Cannon has officially acquired the business. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“The integration of a world-class onsite member experience and Cannon Connect’s superior virtual resource network creates a seamless, streamlined environment for member organizations,” Clemmie Martin, The Cannon’s newly appointed chief of staff, says in the release. “Cannon Connect and this acquisition have paved new pathways to access and success for all.” Read more.

Emma Konet, co-founder and CTO of Tierra Climate, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

Meet the Houston innovator who's creating a new market for decarbonizing energy storage

HOUSTON INNOVATORS PODCAST EPISODE 225

If the energy transition is going to be successful, the energy storage space needs to be equipped to support both the increased volume of energy needed and new energies. And Emma Konet and her software company, Tierra Climate, are targeting one part of the equation: the market.

"To me, it's very clear that we need to build a lot of energy storage in order to transition the grid," Konet says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "The problems that I saw were really on the market side of things."

Konet says she was bullish on the energy storage side of things when she was an early hire at Key Capture Energy, a private equity-backed energy storage project developer. The issue with energy storage projects, as Konet describes, is they aren't being monetized properly and, in some cases, aren't sustainable and increasing emissions.

"The product we're building is solving these problems. It's a financial product, but what it's doing is solving a market deficiency," she says. "We're sending the right signal to the battery to operate in a way that reduces emissions, and then we're paying them for it because there's a demand to decarbonize."

For over a year, Konet, as co-founder and CTO, has worked on the platform, which is essentially a marketplace for corporates to buy carbon offsets, incentifying and monetizing storage projects.

Tierra Climate is technology agnostic, so while the company is seeing activity in the battery space, they can also work with other types of storage — like hydrogen, pumped water, and more. Konet says her ideal customers are companies with money and interest in playing a role in the energy transition and looking to offset their scope two and three emissions.

"The ultimate vision for our company is for this to be an accessible product that has a high degree of integrity that small to very large companies can execute on, because it's a pay-per-performance mechanism that doesn't lock companies into a really large contract," she says. "It's really scalable."

This year, she says the company, which won fourth place in the 2023 Rice Business Plan Competition, is focused on securing its first big contract and fundraising for its seed round.

The six finalists for the sustainability category for the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards weigh in on their challenges overcome. Photos courtesy

Top Houston-based sustainability startups share their 4 biggest challenges

houston innovation awards

Six Houston-area sustainability startups have been named finalists in the 2023 Houston Innovation Awards, but they didn't achieve this recognition — as well as see success for their businesses — without any obstacles.

The finalists were asked what their biggest challenges have been. From funding to market adoption, the sustainability companies have had to overcome major obstacles to continue to develop their businesses.

The awards program — hosted by InnovationMap, and Houston Exponential — will name its winners on November 8 at the Houston Innovation Awards. The program was established to honor the best and brightest companies and individuals from the city's innovation community. Eighteen energy startups were named as finalists across all categories, but the following responses come from the finalists in the sustainability category specifically.

    Click here to secure your tickets to see who wins.

    1. Securing a commercial pilot

    "As an early-stage clean energy developer, we struggled to convince key suppliers to work on our commercial pilot project. Suppliers were skeptical of our unproven technology and, given limited inventory from COVID, preferred to prioritize larger clients. We overcame this challenge by bringing on our top suppliers as strategic investors. With a long-term equity stake in Fervo, leading oilfield services companies were willing to provide Fervo with needed drilling rigs, frack crews, pumps, and other equipment." — Tim Latimer, founder and CEO of Fervo Energy

    2. Finding funding

    "Securing funding in Houston as a solo cleantech startup founder and an immigrant with no network. Overcome that by adopting a milestone-based fundraising approach and establishing credibility through accelerator/incubator programs." — Anas Al Kassas, CEO and founder of INOVUES

    "The biggest challenge has been finding funding. Most investors are looking towards software development companies as the capital costs are low in case of a risk. Geothermal costs are high, but it is physical technology that needs to be implemented to safety transition the energy grid to reliable, green power." — Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage Geosystems

    3. Market adoption

    "Market adoption by convincing partners and government about WHP as a solution, which is resource-intensive. Making strides by finding the correct contacts to educate." — Janice Tran, CEO and co-founder of Kanin Energy

    "We are creating a brand new financial instrument at the intersection of carbon markets and power markets, both of which are complicated and esoteric. Our biggest challenge has been the cold-start problem associated with launching a new product that has effectively no adoption. We tackled this problem by leading the Energy Storage Solutions Consortium (a group of corporates and battery developers looking for sustainability solutions in the power space), which has opened up access to customers on both sides of our marketplace. We have also leveraged our deep networks within corporate power procurement and energy storage development to talk to key decision-makers at innovative companies with aggressive climate goals to become early adopters of our products and services." — Emma Konet, CTO and co-founder of Tierra Climate

    4. Long scale timelines

    "Scaling and commercializing industrial technologies takes time. We realized this early on and designed the eXERO technology to be scalable from the onset. We developed the technology at the nexus of traditional electrolysis and conventional gas processing, taking the best of both worlds while avoiding their main pitfalls." — Claus Nussgruber, CEO of Utility Global

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    This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

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    Houston’s 10 most valuable startups revealed in new report

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    The Greater Houston Partnership has released its list of the 10 most valuable startups that are fueling the city’s growth and entrepreneurial energy, including industry giants like Axiom Space and Fervo Energy.

    Currently, Houston hosts more than 1,300 startups in industries such as energy, life sciences, manufacturing and aerospace, according to the GHP. The list ranks its top 10 startups by valuation based on the company’s last private funding round, reflected in Pitchbook data, as of Oct. 20 of this year.

    The top 10 list includes:

    10. NXTClean Fuels

    Valuation: $530 million

    NXTClean Fuels builds biofuel refineries that produce renewable fuel by using feedstocks like cooking oil and recycled organic materials.

    9. Homebase

    Valuation: $660 million

    HR tech company Homebase provides employee management software that helps manage and optimize timesheets, payroll and more, with over over 100,000 small businesses and 2 million hourly workers using its product.

    8. Zolve

    Valuation: $800 million

    Zolve is a banking platform that provides customers with access to financial products that aim to be accessible, flexible, and affordable than other financial platforms.

    7. Stramsen Biotech

    Valuation: $807 million

    Stramsen Biotech develops plant-based drug therapies that target both infectious and noninfectious diseases, which include cancer, diabetes, HIV, kidney disease and neurological issues.

    6. Octagos

    Valuation: $843 million

    Healthtech company Octagos has developed a remote cardiac monitoring software driven by AI that helps consolidate patient data in real-time, assisting healthcare professionals in providing quicker, easier and more accurate care.

    5. Fervo Energy

    Valuation: $1.4 billion

    Pioneering geothermal company Fervo Energy combines horizontal drilling and fiber-optic sensing to produce electricity. The company is developing its flagship Cape Station geothermal power project in Utah. The first phase of the project will supply 100 megawatts of power beginning in 2026

    4.Cart.com

    Valuation: $1.7 billion

    Cart.com is an e-commerce giant and logistics solutions provider that was founded in 2020 and obtained unicorn status within just three years.

    3. Axiom Space

    Valuation: $2.1 billion

    Axiom Space is one of the anchor tenants at the Houston Spaceport, and has completed four missions of sending commercial astronauts to the ISS since 2022. In 2027, the company expects to see the first section of its private space station, Axiom Station, launched into low-earth orbit.

    2. Solugen

    Valuation: $2.175 billion

    Solugen replaces petroleum-based products with plant-derived substitutes through its Bioforge manufacturing platform.

    1. HighRadius

    Valuation: $3.2 billion

    HighRadius uses advanced technology to automate and manage accounts receivable processes for businesses worldwide.

    The GHP also released its State of Houston’s Tech and Innovation Landscape, which mapped Houston’s digital and innovation sectors. Read the full report here.

    Photos: Highlights from the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards

    Innovation Awards Recap

    The 2025 Houston Innovation Awards season came to a close on Nov. 13 at InnovationMap's annual awards program and networking event.

    The fifth annual Houston Innovation Awards celebrated more than 40 innovative finalists and crowned 10 winners across prestigious categories. In the weeks leading up to the event, finalists were profiled in our editorial series spotlights. Read all about this year's winners here.

    Finalists, judges, and special guests connected during an exclusive VIP reception before the doors officially opened for the evening. A full house of attendees then gathered to celebrate the best and brightest in Houston innovation right now. The night culminated in an awards program, emceed this year by Lawson Gow, Greentown Labs Head of Houston.

    Scroll through the photos below for scenes from the event, including the winners, the guests, and more highlights from the program.

    Special thanks to this year's sponsors for an unforgettable evening honoring Houston innovation: Houston City College Northwest, Houston Powder Coaters, FLIGHT by Yuengling, William Price Distilling, and Citizens Catering.

    2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners:

    Energy Transition Business of the Year: Eclipse Energy. Photo by Emily Jaschke
    2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners:

    2025 Houston Innovation Awards Winners, Continued

    Minority-founded Business of the Year: Mars Materials. Photo by Emily Jaschke

    2025 Houston Innovation Awards Guests 

    Photo by Emily Jaschke

    More 2025 Houston Innovation Awards Highlights

    Photo by Emily Jaschke

    Texas ranks among 10 best states to find a job, says new report

    jobs report

    If you’re hunting for a job in Texas amid a tough employment market, you stand a better chance of landing it here than you might in other states.

    A new ranking by personal finance website WalletHub of the best states for jobs puts Texas at No. 7. The Lone Star State lands at No. 2 in the economic environment category and No. 18 in the job market category.

    Massachusetts tops the list, and West Virginia appears at the bottom.

    To determine the most attractive states for employment, WalletHub compared the 50 states across 34 key indicators of economic health and job market strength. Ranking factors included employment growth, median annual income, and average commute time.

    “Living in one of the best states for jobs can provide stable conditions for the long term, helping you ride out the fluctuations that the economy will experience in the future,” WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo says.

    In September, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Texas led the U.S. in job creation with the addition of 195,600 jobs over the past 12 months.

    “Texas is America’s jobs leader,” Abbott says. “With the best business climate in the nation and a skilled and growing labor force, Texas is where businesses invest, jobs grow, and families thrive. Texas will continue to cut red tape and invest in businesses large and small to spur the economic growth of communities across our great state.”

    While Abbott proclaims Texas is “America’s jobs leader,” the state’s level of job creation has recently slowed. In June, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas noted that the state’s year-to-date job growth rate had dipped to 1.8 percent, and that even slower job growth was expected in the second half of this year.

    The August unemployment rate in Texas stood at 4.1 percent, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Throughout 2025, the monthly rate in Texas has been either four percent or 4.1 percent.

    By comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate in August was 4.3 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2025, the monthly rate for the U.S. has ranged from 4 percent to 4.3 percent.

    Here’s a rundown of the August unemployment rates in Texas’ four biggest metro areas:

    • Austin — 3.9 percent
    • Dallas-Fort Worth — 4.4 percent
    • Houston — 5 percent
    • San Antonio — 4.4 percent

    Unemployment rates have remained steady this year despite layoffs and hiring freezes driven by economic uncertainty. However, the number of U.S. workers who’ve been without a job for at least 27 weeks has risen by 385,000 this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in August. That month, long-term unemployed workers accounted for about one-fourth of all unemployed workers.

    An August survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York showed a record-low 44.9 percent of Americans were confident about finding a job if they lost their current one.
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