Why this growing Chilean clean energy company moved its HQ to Houston

future of farming

Lignium combats greenhouse gasses with a green fuel that boasts an enviably low carbon footprint. Photo courtesy of Lignium

In Houston, air pollution is usually more of an abstract concept than a harsh reality. But in parts of Chile, the consequences of heating homes with wet wood are catching up to residents.

“Given all the contamination, there are times kids aren’t allowed to go to school. The air pollution is really affecting people’s health,” says Agustín Ríos, COO of Lignium Energy.

Additionally, the methane and nitrous oxide produced by cattle farming are a problem. But Lignium Energy, an international company started in Chile and now headquartered in Houston’s Greentown Labs, has a solution that can solve both problems by upending the latter.

“There’s a lack of solutions with the problem of manure. Methane gases are destroying our planet,” says CEO and co-founder Enrique Guzmán. He goes on to say that most solutions currently being developed are expensive and complex. But not Lignium Energy’s method, invented by co-founder José Antonio Caraball.

Caraball has patented an extraordinarily simple concept. Lignium separates the solid from liquid excretions, then cleans the solid to generate a hay-like biomass. Biomass refers to organic matter that can be used as fuel. What Lignium makes from the cattle evacuations is a clean, odorless and highly calorific biomass.

Essentially, Lignium combats greenhouse gasses with a green fuel that boasts an enviably low carbon footprint. “Our process is very cheap and very simple. That’s why we are a great solution,” explains Guzmán.

Caraball, an industrial engineer, came up with the idea six years ago, says Guzmán. Five years ago, he began working with the company, one year ago, Guzmán and Ríos picked up and moved to Houston.

“We decided to move out of Chile due to market size,” says Ríos. However, the product is already being sold to consumers in its homeland.

Why Houston? The reason was twofold. As an energy company, Ríos says that they wanted to be in “the energy capital of the world.” But Texas is also one of the largest sites of cattle farming on the planet. Lignium prefers to work with farms with more than 500 head to optimize harvesting the waste that becomes biomass.

With that in mind, Lignium has partnered with Southwest Regional Dairy Center in Stephenville, Texas, a little more than an hour southwest of Fort Worth, a town known as the world’s rodeo capital. The facility is associated with Texas A&M, though Guzmán says Lignium is not officially associated with the university.

Guzmán says that the company is currently hiring a team member to help Lignium figure out commercial logistics, as well as four or five other Houstonians who will help them take their product to market in the United States, and eventually around the globe. For now, he predicts that they will be able to sell to consumers in this country by early next year, if not the fourth quarter of 2023.

“We are very committed to the solution because, at the end of the day, if we do good work with the company, we are sure we can give better conditions to the cattle industry,” says Guzmán. “Then we can make a big impact on a real problem.

BP has partnered with an environmental nonprofit to reduce emissions of methane. Getty Images

BP forms new partnership to reduce methane emissions

Greener thinking

When it comes to greenhouse gas emissions in oil and gas, methane is a less talked about, sneakier culprit compared to carbon dioxide. While it remains in the atmosphere for a shorter period than CO2, methane is 84 times more potent than CO2 during its first 20 years after being emitted into the air.

BP, which has its North American headquarters in Houston, has set out a strategy to minimize its contributions of methane to the atmosphere. The company made a three-year deal with New York-based Environmental Defense Fund to reduce methane emissions in its global supply chain by incorporating new technologies and practices, which will be identified by the new partnership.

"BP is taking a leading role in addressing methane emissions, and this collaboration with EDF is another important step forward for us and for our industry," says Bernard Looney, BP's upstream chief executive, in a release. "We've made great progress driving down emissions across our own business, including meeting our industry-leading methane intensity target of 0.2 percent, but there is much more work to do and partnering with the committed and capable team at EDF will help us develop and share best practices."

BP and EDF will work with universities and third-party experts in order to identify cutting-edge technology for the new initiative, and the company hopes to serve as a leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which is no small undertaking, says Fred Krupp, EDF president, in the release.

"The scale of the methane challenge is enormous, but so is the opportunity," Krupp says. "Whether natural gas can play a constructive role in the energy transition depends on aggressive measures to reduce emissions that include methane. BP took such a step today."

EDF, a nonprofit, won't be paid by BP — per EDF's policy —but BP will assist with funding when it comes to employing experts tasked with finding better technologies to minimize emissions.

"EDF and BP don't agree on everything, but we're finding common ground on methane," Krupp says in the release. "BP has shown early ambition to lead on methane technology. We hope to see more as BP delivers on its own stringent methane goal and we work together to spread solutions industrywide."

BP and EDF have identified three key areas the initiative will focus on this year.

New detection technology
BP will grant up to $500,000 to a detection and quantification technology project at Colorado State University. The initiative includes drone technology and stationary monitoring that hopes to speed up methane emission detection time.

"CSU welcomes this support from BP and EDF for this critical research work, and this provides the necessary confidence and momentum for other stakeholders to contribute in a collaborative environment, in which the results and tools will benefit the wider industry," says Dan Zimmerle, senior research associate for Colorado State University's Energy Institute, in the release.

Advances in digital technology
This year, BP and EDF will announce a digitization project for reducing methane emissions. An EDF report, Fueling the Digital Methane Future, which produced with Accenture Strategy, identified solutions such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality as potential pathways to fewer emissions.

Joint ventures
A 2018 EDF report proved that oil and gas companies can team up to reduce emissions together. BP and EDF plan to host a workshop to find best practices for emission reductions on a larger scale.

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Texas university's innovative 'WaterHub' will dramatically reduce usage by 40%

Sustainable Move

A major advancement in sustainability is coming to one Texas university. A new UT WaterHub at the University of Texas at Austin will be the largest facility of its kind in the U.S. and will transform how the university manages its water resources.

It's designed to work with natural processes instead of against them for water savings of an estimated 40 percent. It's slated for completion in late 2027.

The university has had an active water recovery program since the 1980s. Still, water is becoming an increasing concern in Austin. According to Texas Living Waters, a coalition of conservation groups, Texas loses enough water annually to fill Lady Bird Lake roughly 89 times over.

As Austin continues to expand and face water shortages, the region's water supply faces increased pressure. The UT WaterHub plans to address this challenge by recycling water for campus energy operations, helping preserve water resources for both the university and local communities.

The 9,600-square-foot water treatment facility will use an innovative filtration approach. To reduce reliance on expensive machinery and chemicals, the system uses plants to naturally filter water and gravity to pull it in the direction it needs to go. Used water will be gathered from a new collection point near the Darrell K Royal Texas Memorial Stadium and transported to the WaterHub, located in the heart of the engineering district. The facility's design includes a greenhouse viewable to the public, serving as an interactive learning space.

Beyond water conservation, the facility is designed to protect the university against extreme weather events like winter storms. This new initiative will create a reliable backup water supply while decreasing university water usage, and will even reduce wastewater sent to the city by up to 70 percent.

H2O Innovation, UT’s collaborator in this project, specializes in water solutions, helping organizations manage their water efficiently.

"By combining cutting-edge technology with our innovative financing approach, we’re making it easier for organizations to adopt sustainable water practices that benefit both their bottom line and the environment, paving a step forward in water positivity,” said H2O Innovation president and CEO Frédéric Dugré in a press release.

The university expects significant cost savings with this project, since it won't have to spend as much on buying water from the city or paying fees to dispose of used water. Over the next several years, this could add up to millions of dollars.

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

Texas female-founded companies raised more than $1 billion in 2024, VC data shows

by the numbers

Female-founded companies in Dallas-Fort Worth may rack up more funding deals and more money than those in Houston. However, Bayou City beats DFW in one key category — but just barely.

Data from PitchBook shows that in the past 16 years, female-founded companies in DFW collected $2.7 billion across 488 deals. By comparison, female-founded companies in the Houston area picked up $1.9 billion in VC through 343 deals.

Yet if you do a little math, you find that Houston ekes out an edge over DFW in per-deal values. During the period covered by the PitchBook data, the value of each of the DFW deals averaged $5.53 million. But at $5,54 million, Houston was just $6,572 ahead of DFW for average deal value.

Not surprisingly, the Austin area clobbered Houston and DFW.

During the period covered by the PitchBook data, female-founded companies in the Austin area hauled in $7.5 billion across 1,114 deals. The average value of an Austin deal: more than $6.7 million.

Historically, funding for female-established companies has lagged behind funding for male-established companies. In 2024, female-founded companies accounted for about one-fourth of all VC deals in the U.S., according to PitchBook.

PitchBook noted that in 2024, female-founded companies raised $38.8 billion, up 27 percent from the previous year, but deal count dropped 13.1 percent, meaning more VC for fewer startups. In Texas, female-founded companies brought in $1.3 billion last year via 151 deals. The total raised is the same as 2023, when Texas female founders got $1.3 billion in capital across 190 deals.

“The VC industry is still trying to find solid footing after its peak in 2021. While some progress was made for female founders in 2024, particularly in exit activity, female founders and investors still face an uphill climb,” says Annemarie Donegan, senior research analyst at PitchBook.

Here are 3 Houston innovators to know right now

Innovators to Know

Editor's note: These Houston innovators are making big strides in the fields of neurotechnology, neurodevelopmental diagnosis, and even improving the way we rest and recharge.

For our latest roundup of Innovators to Know, we meet a researcher who is working with teams in Houston and abroad to develop an innovative brain implant; a professor who has created an AI approach to diagnosis; and a local entrepreneur whose brand is poised for major expansion in the coming years.

Jacob Robinson, CEO of Motif Neurotech

Houston startup Motif Neurotech has been selected by the United Kingdom's Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) to participate in its inaugural Precision Neurotechnologies program. The program aims to develop advanced brain-interfacing technologies for cognitive and psychiatric conditions. Three Rice labs will collaborate with Motif Neurotech to develop Brain Mesh, which is a distributed network of minimally invasive implants that can stimulate neural circuits and stream neural data in real time. The project has been awarded approximately $5.9 million.

Motif Neurotech was spun out of the Rice lab of Jacob Robinson, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and bioengineering and CEO of Motif Neurotech.

Robinson will lead the system and network integration and encapsulation efforts for Mesh Points implants. According to Rice, these implants, about the size of a grain of rice, will track and modulate brain states and be embedded in the skull through relatively low-risk surgery. Learn more.

Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa, Dhindsa Lab

Dr. Ryan S. Dhindsa, assistant professor of pathology and immunology at Baylor and principal investigator at the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, and his team have developed an artificial intelligence-based approach that will help doctors to identify genes tied to neurodevelopmental disorders. Their research was recently published the American Journal of Human Genetics.

Dhindsa Lab uses “human genomics, human stem cell models, and computational biology to advance precision medicine.” The diagnoses that stem from the new computational tool could include specific types of autism spectrum disorder, epilepsy and developmental delay, disorders that often don’t come with a genetic diagnosis.

“Although researchers have made major strides identifying different genes associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, many patients with these conditions still do not receive a genetic diagnosis, indicating that there are many more genes waiting to be discovered,” Dhindsa says. Learn more.

Khaliah Guillory, Founder of Nap Bar

From nap research to diversity and inclusion, this entrepreneur is making Houston workers more productiveFrom opening Nap Bar and consulting corporations on diversity and inclusion to serving the city as an LGBT adviser, Khaliah Guillory is focused on productivity. Courtesy of Khaliah Guillory

Khalia Guillory launched her white-glove, eco-friendly rest sanctuary business, Nap Bar, in Houston in 2019 to offer a unique rest experience with artificial intelligence integration for working professionals, entrepreneurs and travelers who needed a place to rest, recharge and rejuvenate.

Now she is ready to take it to the next level, with a pivot to VR and plans to expand to 30 locations in three years.

Guillory says she’s now looking to scale the business by partnering with like-minded investors with experience in the wellness space. She envisions locations at national and international airports, which she says offer ripe scenarios for patrons needing to recharge. Additionally, Guillory wants to build on her initial partnership with UT Health by going onsite to curate rest experiences for patients, caregivers, faculty, staff, nurses and doctors. Colleges also offer an opportunity for growth. Learn more.

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