Greentown Labs has announced its newest climatetech incubator cohort. Photo via GreentownLabs.com

Greentown Labs announced that it added five startups to its Houston community in Q1 of 2025.

The companies are among a group of 19 that joined the climatetech incubator, which is co-located in Houston and Boston, in the same time period. The companies that joined the Houston-based lab specialize in a number of "green" applications, from converting plastic waste into sustainable materials to developing energy-storage solutions.

The new Houston members include:

  • Concept Loop, a project of Pakistan-based Innova8e Inc., aims to repurpose post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste into sustainable building materials.
  • GeoFuels, a Sugar Land-based company that produces hydrogen by using baseload geothermal power and methane pyrolysis.
  • PLASENE, a Houston-based company with an innovative platform that converts plastic waste into liquid fuel and low-carbon hydrogen through its proprietary catalysts and modular, scalable, pre-engineered units platform. The company was named to Greentown's ACCEL Year 3 cohort earlier this year.
  • RepAir Carbon, an Israeli company with a fully electric, zero-heat carbon-removal technology that consumes minimal energy, operates without liquids or solvents, and produces no hazardous materials or waste.
  • RotorVault from Pasadena, California, is commercializing energy-storage and load-following solutions that are containerized, modular, and field-deployable systems built on flywheel technology.

Fourteen other companies will join Greentown Boston's incubator. See the full list here.

PLASENE and five other new members—Thola, Respire Energy, Andros Innovations, FAST Metals and Tato Labs—join Greentown Labs through its most recent Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders Program, or ACCEL, cohort. ACCEL, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, announced its third cohort last month.

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A version of this story originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.

A report by web-hosting company Hostinger showed that Texas is making one of the biggest impacts on the digital economy. Photo via Getty Images

Texas lands top 10 spot in new future of tech study

report

Texas is among the top 10 states making the biggest investments in digital innovation, according to a new study.

The study, conducted by web-hosting company Hostinger, puts Texas in eighth place among the states when it comes to these key metrics:

  • Financial impact of the digital economy
  • Amount of venture capital and grants received by digital startups
  • Number of government-run tech hubs
  • Presence of top-rated business incubators

“To many, the Texas story is one of oil magnates and real estate tycoons. But in recent decades, the state has emerged as an innovation and high-tech hub,” according to a report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

On a scale of 1 to 100, Texas received a score of 79. California nabbed the top spot with a score of 100. Appearing behind California and ahead of Texas in the ranking are:

  • No. 2: New York
  • No. 3: Washington
  • No. 4: Illinois
  • No. 5: Massachusetts
  • No. 6: Missouri
  • No. 7: Wisconsin

In terms of ranking factors, Texas benefited the most from landing at No. 2 among the states for its impact on the digital economy. The study pegged Texas’ digital economic impact at $141.7 billion, well below California’s impact of $492.8 billion.

Hostinger relied primarily on government data on 31 states to come up with the ranking. “The research provides a detailed ranking based on a composite score that reflects each state's overall investment and capacity for digital innovation,” the company says.

More than 30,000 businesses in Texas participate in the digital economy, according to the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA). Those businesses employ more than 633,000 people and account for over six percent of the state’s GDP, a key measure of economic strength.

“As technology companies face increasing scrutiny through state and national legislation and litigation, it’s crucial to recognize the significant positive impacts of the digital economy that resonate across the United States,” says the CCIA.

Texas Medical Center Innovation won a Prix Galien Award, which has been described as being comparable to the Nobel Prize for the life science community. Photo by Natalie Harms/InnovationMap

Houston's Texas Medical Center wins prestigious global award recognizing leaders in life science innovation

new bling

Last month, a global organization honored innovation leaders in life sciences, and the Texas Medical Center was among the recipients of the prestigious awards program.

The 18th annual Prix Galien Awards Gala awarded TMC Innovation with the win in the "Incubators, Accelerators and Equity" category. The Galien Foundation created the awards program in 1970 in honor of Galien, the father of medical science and modern pharmacology. Alongside TMC, the other winners represented biotech, digital health, startups, and more.

"We are super proud of this distinction," Tom Luby, director of TMC Innovation says at Envision 2024 last month, crediting the TMCi team and TMC leadership for the award. "We lean on a lot of advisers and experts — people who volunteer their time to work with startups. Without (them), we would not have been successful."

Luby explains that a Prix Galien Award holds a Nobel Prize level of significance for the community.

TMCi was named a finalist in August, and competed against programs from Cedars-Sinai, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, TechConnect, and more.

"The Awards Committee is honored to witness the exceptional dedication and creativity of our nominees as they turn visionary ideas into transformative solutions for patients worldwide," says Michael Rosenblatt, chair of the Prix Galien USA Awards Committee, in a news release. "Their unwavering commitment to advancing patient care is truly commendable, and we are honored to celebrate their outstanding contributions to global health."

The award is displayed at TMC Innovation's office, located in the medical center at 2450 Holcombe Blvd.

A Houston-based initiative has been selected by the DOE to receive funding to develop clean energy innovation programming for startups and entrepreneurs. Photo via Getty Images

Houston initiative selected for DOE program developing hubs for clean energy innovation

seeing green

Houston has been selected as one of the hubs backed by a new program from the United States Department of Energy that's developing communities for clean energy innovation.

The DOE's Office of Technology Transitions announced the the first phase of winners of the Energy Program for Innovation Clusters, or EPIC, Round 3. The local initiative is one of 23 incubators and accelerators that was awarded $150,000 to support programming for energy startups and entrepreneurs.

The Houston-based participant is called "Texas Innovates: Carbon and Hydrogen Innovation and Learning Incubator," or CHILI, and it's a program meant to feed startups into the DOE recognized HyVelocity program and other regional decarbonization efforts.

EPIC was launched to drive innovation at a local level and to inspire commercial success of energy startups. It's the third year of the competition that wraps up with a winning participant negotiating a three-year cooperative agreement with OTT worth up to $1 million.

“Incubators and Accelerators are uniquely positioned to provide startups things they can't get anywhere else -- mentorship, technology validation, and other critical business development support," DOE Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of OTT Vanessa Z. Chan says in a news release. “The EPIC program allows us to provide consistent funding to organizations who are developing robust programming, resources, and support for innovative energy startups and entrepreneurs.”

CHILI, the only participant in Texas, now moves on to the second phase of the competition, where they will design a project continuation plan and programming for the next seven months to be submitted in September.

Phase 2 also includes two national pitch competitions with a total of $165,000 in cash prizes up for grabs for startups. The first EPIC pitch event for 2024 will be in June at the 2024 Small Business Forum & Expo in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Last fall, the DOE selected the Gulf Coast's project, HyVelocity Hydrogen Hub, as one of the seven regions to receive a part of the $7 billion in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The hub was announced to receive up to $1.2 billion — the most any hub will get.

The DOE's OTT selections are nationwide. Photo via energy.gov

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This article originally ran on EnergyCapital.

Tech startups are leaving Silicon Valley in droves — and some are finding benefits in heading back to school. Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

Siliconned: Leaving Silicon Valley for universities

Houston Voices

Silicon Valley has been a tech startup paradise for decades. It has been described as the modern day Florence in the Renaissance. Tech gods from Apple and Google to Facebook and Twitter were born here. We can credit Silicon Valley as the birthplace for such world-changing innovations like smartphones, microprocessor chips, Tesla automation, and WIFI-enabled teapots.

Okay, so maybe that last one isn't changing the world, but it was created in the Valley and it's changed my life, for whatever that's worth. If Silicon Valley were a country, it would have the 19th-biggest economy on the planet. There's no doubt it is an engineer's dream. A techie's haven. A capitalist's utopia. A beacon of the modern world.

Or at least, it used to be.

Now leaving the Bay Area

There is an exodus in Silicon Valley. It's been happening for about three years. For instance, according to a 2018 poll conducted by the Bay Area Council, 46 percent of survey takers admit they plan to leave the Bay Area in the next year. Couple that with the fact that Silicon Valley investors have allocated 66 percent of their funds into startups outside of Silicon Valley, compared with 50 percent just six years ago, and you have a recipe for a great exodus to other markets around the country.

Now, just for kicks, add to all of this that the Kauffman Foundation's research has pegged Miami-Fort Lauderdale as the number one city in America for startup activity. Where does Silicon Valley's Bay Area, formerly the world's preeminent hub for tech startups, rank? Fourteenth. How the mighty have fallen.

So, to what exactly can this mass egress be attributed?

Insufficient funds

The biggest reason is cost.

The cost of living in the Bay Area is one of the steepest on the planet. Startups in the Valley pay four times what they would in any other city in the country. In fact, just last year the California Association of Realtors reported that a typical family in San Francisco has to make over $300,000 a year in order to afford a median-priced house tagged at just over a million dollars. That includes a 20 percent down payment and an $8,000 monthly payment. Because most of the startups in Silicon Valley are in their infancies, the engineers, programmers, and non-technical employees don't get compensated enough to afford such a living. As a result, they are leaving the Bay Area in droves for places where the cost of living is manageable.

One location that tech startup entrepreneurs are flocking to is the university. Universities are also retaining tech wunderkinds on campus to blossom their startups, rather than seeing them leave for the microprocessor motherland known as Silicon Valley.

Now entering university life

One of the biggest reasons universities have become hotbeds for tech startups is that campuses provide a means for people with multidisciplinary backgrounds to intermingle within the same space. A chemical engineering student with a great idea might meet an MBA during a startup launch party. Together they can build and market the second iteration of "Secret Stuff" from Space Jam, or whatever that student has in mind.

The point is that universities position aspiring entrepreneurs to network with the right people for building their company from the ground up. Even the Innovation Leadership Forum attests that innovation is born when different ways of thinking clash. That is precisely what happens on campuses every day.

Furthermore, college students also have more room to take risks. Most aspiring entrepreneurs in college between 18 and 25 are not married, do not have kids, mortgages, or any other major financial responsibilities. This allows them to have the luxury of leeway when it comes to experimenting and trial and error.

The ecosystem of innovation

In essence, academic incubators are courting tech entrepreneurs because universities offer an ecosystem designed to support and grow startups from conception to commercialization. This ecosystem includes a space where researchers, faculty, and students of all disciplines interact and form working relationships. In many cases, it also includes university owned equipment and laboratories for use by startup researchers.

There is, of course, incentive for universities to concentrate so many resources to building incubators and luring startup entrepreneurs. There is an inherent sense of responsibility that universities have to create an academic climate that encourages students to explore new ideas. A sense of responsibility that encourages them to take more risks; to be fearless in their quest to use their intellect to enrich lives; to dream.

Moreover, university incubators also position schools as progressive institutions. Such positioning attracts elite researchers and enhances a university's reputation. Further, these incubators forge a bridge that links industry and academia in a way that Silicon Valley does not. That's because with academic incubators, startups are a stone's throw away from a place teeming with researchers, scientists, hungry students, and aspiring entrepreneurs: the university campus.

Consequently, it is no wonder that tech startups are leaving Silicon Valley for universities. It's also no surprise that students who have graduated are staying with their university's incubators to develop their companies. There, they have a place that cultivates innovation, encourages risk-taking, and is set up specifically to help them bring their tech to the world. In short, the university has become a hub set up to be conducive to thriving tech startups. And tech entrepreneurs have noticed.

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea.

Rene Cantu is the writer and editor at UH Division of Research.

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Houston university to launch artificial intelligence major, one of first in nation

BS in AI

Rice University announced this month that it plans to introduce a Bachelor of Science in AI in the fall 2025 semester.

The new degree program will be part of the university's department of computer science in the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing and is one of only a few like it in the country. It aims to focus on "responsible and interdisciplinary approaches to AI," according to a news release from the university.

“We are in a moment of rapid transformation driven by AI, and Rice is committed to preparing students not just to participate in that future but to shape it responsibly,” Amy Dittmar, the Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, said in the release. “This new major builds on our strengths in computing and education and is a vital part of our broader vision to lead in ethical AI and deliver real-world solutions across health, sustainability and resilient communities.”

John Greiner, an assistant teaching professor of computer science in Rice's online Master of Computer Science program, will serve as the new program's director. Vicente Ordóñez-Román, an associate professor of computer science, was also instrumental in developing and approving the new major.

Until now, Rice students could study AI through elective courses and an advanced degree. The new bachelor's degree program opens up deeper learning opportunities to undergrads by blending traditional engineering and math requirements with other courses on ethics and philosophy as they relate to AI.

“With the major, we’re really setting out a curriculum that makes sense as a whole,” Greiner said in the release. “We are not simply taking a collection of courses that have been created already and putting a new wrapper around them. We’re actually creating a brand new curriculum. Most of the required courses are brand new courses designed for this major.”

Students in the program will also benefit from resources through Rice’s growing AI ecosystem, like the Ken Kennedy Institute, which focuses on AI solutions and ethical AI. The university also opened its new AI-focused "innovation factory," Rice Nexus, earlier this year.

“We have been building expertise in artificial intelligence,” Ordóñez-Román added in the release. “There are people working here on natural language processing, information retrieval systems for machine learning, more theoretical machine learning, quantum machine learning. We have a lot of expertise in these areas, and I think we’re trying to leverage that strength we’re building.”

Houston biomanufacturing accelerator adds pilot plant to support scale-ups

new digs

Houston accelerator BioWell announced this month that it has taken over operations of Texas BioTechnology’s pilot plant in Richmond, Texas.

The 33,000-square-foot facility is one of the largest of its kind in the U.S. and features molecular biology labs, advanced automation, fermentation equipment and 16 dedicated benches for early-stage industrial biomanufacturing companies, according to a release from the company. It will allow BioWell to offer on-site education, workforce development, and lab training for students and workers.

BioWell and its founding company, First Bight Ventures, report that the facility should help address the industry's "scale-up bottleneck due to limited pilot- and demonstration-scale infrastructure" in the U.S.

"As a Houston-based accelerator dedicated exclusively to early-stage biomanufacturing startups, partnering with this facility was a natural and highly strategic decision for us. The site is fully operational and offers a strong platform to support biomanufacturing companies, industry leaders, and research institutions, providing critical expertise and infrastructure across a broad range of biotechnology production processes,” Veronica Breckenridge, founder of First Bight Ventures and BioWell, said in a news release.

First Bight Ventures shares that the partnership with the facility will also allow it to better support its portfolio companies and make them more attractive to future investors.

BioWell will host an open house and tours of the fermentation and lab spaces and an overview of current bioindustrial projects Wednesday, May 28, at 10:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. RSVPs are required.

BioWell was originally funded by a $700,000 U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale grant and launched as a virtual accelerator for bioindustrial startups. Listen to an interview with Carlos Estrada, head of venture acceleration at BioWell, here.

Ultra-fast EV charging bays coming to Waffle House locations in Texas and beyond

power breakfast

Scattered, smothered and ... charged?

Starting next year, EV drivers can connect to ultra-fast charging stations at select Waffle House locations throughout Texas, courtesy of bp pulse.

The EV arm of British energy giant bp announced a strategic partnership with the all-day breakfast chain this week. The company aims to deploy a network of 400kW DC fast chargers and a mix of CCS and NACS connectors at Waffle House locations in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and other restaurants in the South.

Each Waffle House site will feature six ultra-fast EV charging bays, allowing drivers to "(enjoy) Waffle House’s 24/7 amenities," the announcement reads.

“Adding an iconic landmark like Waffle House to our growing portfolio of EV charging sites is such an exciting opportunity. As an integrated energy company, bp is committed to providing efficient solutions like ultra-fast charging to support our customers’ mobility needs," Sujay Sharma, CEO of bp pulse U.S., said in a news release. "We’re building a robust network of ultra-fast chargers across the country, and this is another example of third-party collaborations enabling access to charging co-located with convenient amenities for EV drivers.”

The news comes as bp pulse continues to grow its charging network in Texas.

The company debuted its new high-speed electric vehicle charging site, known as the Gigahub, at the bp America headquarters in Houston last year. In partnership with Hertz Electrifies Houston, it also previously announced plans to install a new EV fast-charging hub at Hobby Airport. In a recent partnership with Simon Malls, bp also shared plans to install EV charging Gigahubs at The Galleria and Katy Mills Mall.

bp has previously reported that it plans to invest $1 billion in EV charging infrastructure by 2030, with $500 million invested by the end of 2025.

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A version of this article originally appeared on EnergyCapitalHTX.com.