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 InnoVentRenewables, 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 SageGeosystems, 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-founded startup raises $1.2M and moves headquarters to Detroit

    moving forward

    Houston-founded ChurchSpace, known as the Airbnb for churches, has formed an official partnership with the City of Detroit and will relocate its headquarters.

    The announcements come as the company successfully closed a $1.2 million oversubscribed funding round. The round was led by California-based Black Ops Ventures, with participation from Michigan Rise and Dug Song of Minor Capital, who is also the founder of the Song Foundation, another Michigan-based organization.

    "This raise is more than a business milestone—it's a testament to what happens when strategy meets faith. In today's climate, raising capital takes grit and resilience—especially without deep networks or traditional access. By God's grace, doors have opened, and our mission is clearer than ever. Now, with capital in hand, we're building boldly toward a future where the Church isn't just surviving—but leading community transformation," Emmanuel Brown, co-founder and CEO of ChurchSpace, said in a statement.

    In Detroit, ChurchSpace plans to activate underutilized church campuses as micro-logistics spaces for food distribution and retail partnerships, as well as last-mile delivery centers. To kick off its relocation, ChurchSpace will host a Detroit Pastor Meetup on July 19.

    "We welcome ChurchSpace's investment in Detroit and the jobs and innovation it will bring," Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan added in the release. "Our faith community has long been a critical backbone of our neighborhoods. Through ChurchSpace's groundbreaking work, they will continue to be anchors of opportunity and resilience in our city's future."

    ChurchSpace was originally founded to convert underutilized church real estate into event, meeting and commercial kitchen space to boost revenue and relieve financial burden while remaining compliant with IRS regulations for non-profits. The company participated in the inaugural cohort of the AWS Impact Accelerator for Black Founders, which included a pre-seed fundraising campaign and a $125,000 equity injection from Amazon in 2022. It was also one of two Houston companies to receive $100,000 as part of the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund that same year.

    The company reports that its platform in Texas has generated up to $100,000 annually in new revenue that was reinvested into church ministries, food programs and community initiatives.

    "What we built in Houston was more than technology—it was transformation. We expanded our purpose and packaged proven strategies to help churches thrive, transform communities, and even combat food insecurity," Day Edwards, co-founder and president of ChurchSpace, added in the statement. "Now, with prayer and the support of our team and investors, we're bringing that same impact to Detroit—to help churches, communities, and small businesses redefine pulpits and rediscover communal possibilities."

    Houston space tech co. lands millions and more innovation news to know

    Trending News

    Editor's note: It's time to recap the top innovation news for the first half of May 2025. Our five most-read stories from May 1-15 include updates from Intuitive Machines and The Ion. Plus, driverless trucks hit the road from Houston to Dallas. Get all of the details below.

    1. Houston space tech leader lands up to $10 million for Earth re-entry vehicle and lab

    The Texas Space Commission has selected Houston's Intuitive Machines to develop a vehicle that will return lunar samples to Earth, along with an orbital fabrication lab. Photo courtesy Intuitive Machines.

    Houston-based space technology, infrastructure, and services company Intuitive Machines has been awarded a state grant of up to $10 million to help develop an Earth re-entry vehicle and in-space biomanufacturing lab. The Texas Space Commission approved the grant, which is coming from the state’s Space Exploration and Research Fund. Intuitive Machines says the money will support its “critical risk-reduction platform” for returning lunar samples to Earth. The funding will go toward an early 12-month phase of the project. Continue reading.

    2. 9 can't-miss Houston business and innovation events for May

    Don't miss these May events — from an investor activation series to a crawfish cook-off. Photo courtesy Greentown Labs.

    There's a lot to learn this month at events around Houston. Hear from AI and energy experts or gain insights into how to tap into funding at informative panels or sessions. Continue reading.

    3. Autonomous truck company rolls out driverless Houston-Dallas route

    Aurora began regular driverless deliveries between Houston and Dallas on April 27. Photo courtesy Aurora.

    Houston is helping drive the evolution of self-driving freight trucks. In October, Aurora opened a more than 90,000-square-foot terminal at a Fallbrook Drive logistics hub in northwest Houston to support the launch of its first “lane” for driverless trucks—a Houston-to-Dallas route on the Interstate 45 corridor. Aurora opened its Dallas-area terminal in April and the company began regular driverless customer deliveries between the two Texas cities on April 27. Continue reading.

    4. Texas-based 'DoorDash for laundry' startup tumbles into Houston market

    The service has been a smash success in Austin. Courtesy photo

    Laundry may seem like an endless task that piles up, but a new service offers a solution to overwhelmed Houston families. NoScrubs, an Austin-based home laundry pickup service has just expanded to Houston. Described by the company as "DoorDash — but for laundry," they wash customer's clothes at local laundromats and return them the same day, folded and ready to be put away. The service took off like gangbusters in Austin, making an expansion to the state's largest city an obvious choice. Continue reading.

    5. New energy innovation and coworking spaces open at the Ion

    The Oxy Innovation Center has opened at the Ion and Industrious' coworking space launches soon. Photo courtesy of The Ion

    Houston-based Occidental officially opened its new Oxy Innovation Center with a ribbon cutting at the Ion. The opening reflects Oxy and the Ion's "shared commitment to advancing technology and accelerating a lower-carbon future," according to an announcement from the Ion. Oxy, which was named a corporate partner of the Ion in 2023, now has nearly 6,500 square feet on the fourth floor of the Ion. Rice University and the Rice Real Estate Company announced the lease of the additional space last year, along with agreements with Fathom Fund and Activate. Continue reading.

    Houston healthtech leader launches clinical trial for innovative anxiety-treating device

    making waves

    Houston-based Nexalin Technology’s proprietary neurostimulation device will move forward with a new clinical trial evaluating its treatment of anxiety disorders and chronic insomnia in Brazil.

    The first of Nexalin’s Gen-2 15-milliamp neurostimulation devices have been shipped to São Paulo, Brazil, and the study will be conducted at the Instituto de Psiquiatria university hospital (IPq-HCFMUSP). The shipments aim to support the launch of a Phase II clinical trial in adult patients suffering from anxiety and insomnia, according to a news release.

    “Brazil is an important emerging market for mental health innovation, and this collaboration marks our first IRB-approved study in the region,” Mike White, CEO of Nexalin, said in the release.

    The study will be led by Dr. Andre Russowsky Brunoni, who specializes in neuromodulation and interventional psychiatry. He currently serves as director of the interventional psychiatry division at IPq-HCFMUSP and this summer will join UT Southwestern in Dallas and its Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute as a professor of psychiatry.

    The Phase II study plans to enroll 30 adults in São Paulo and assess the efficacy of Nexalin’s non-invasive deep intracranial frequency stimulation (DIFS™) of the brain in reducing anxiety symptoms and improving sleep quality, according to the company. Using the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAM-A), the trial’s goal is a reduction in anxiety symptoms, and assessments of sleep onset latency, total sleep time, overall sleep quality, depressive symptoms and clinical impression of improvement. The company plans to share results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

    “Anxiety and insomnia are very common conditions that often occur together and cause significant distress,” Brunoni added in the news release. “In this study, we are testing a new, non-invasive brain stimulation technology that has shown promising results in recent research. Our goal is to offer a safe, painless, and accessible alternative to improve people’s well being and sleep quality.”

    The Nexalin Gen-2 15-milliamp neurostimulation device has been approved in China, Brazil, and Oman.

    The company also enrolled the first patients in its clinical trial at the University of California, San Diego, in collaboration with the VA San Diego Healthcare System for its Nexalin HALO, which looks to treat mild traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder in military personnel and the civilian population. It also recently raised $5 million through a public stock offering. Read more here.

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