Ben Jawdat, CEO and founder of Revterra, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo via LinkedIn

With more and more electric vehicles on the road, existing electrical grid infrastructure needs to be able to keep up. Houston-based Revterra has the technology to help.

"One of the challenges with electric vehicle adoption is we're going to need a lot of charging stations to quickly charge electric cars," Ben Jawdat, CEO and founder of Revterra, says on the Houston Innovators Podcast. "People are familiar with filling their gas tank in a few minutes, so an experience similar to that is what people are looking for."

To charge an EV in ten minutes is about 350 kilowatts of power, and, as Jawdat explains, if several of these charges are happening at the same time, it puts a tremendous strain on the electric grid. Building the infrastructure needed to support this type of charging would be a huge project, but Jawdat says he thought of a more turnkey solution.

Revterra created a kinetic energy storage system that enables rapid EV charging. The technology pulls from the grid, but at a slower, more manageable pace. Revterra's battery acts as an intermediary to store that energy until the consumer is ready to charge.

"It's an energy accumulator and a high-power energy discharger," Jawdat says, explaining that compared to an electrical chemical battery, which could be used to store energy for EVs, kinetic energy can be used more frequently and for faster charging.

Jawdat, who is a trained physicist with a PhD from the University of Houston and worked as a researcher at Rice University, says some of his challenges were receiving early funding and identifying customers willing to deploy his technology.

Last year, Revterra raised $8.5 million in a series A funding round. Norway’s Equinor Ventures led the round, with participation from Houston-based SCF Ventures and At One Ventures. Previously, Revterra raised nearly $500,000 through a combination of angel investments and a National Science Foundation grant.

The funding has gone toward growing Revterra's team, including onboarding three new engineers with some jobs still open, Jawdat says. Additionally, Revterra is building out its new lab space and launching new pilot programs.

Ultimately, Revterra, an inaugural member of Greentown Houston, hopes to be a major player within the energy transition.

"We really want to be an enabling technology in the renewable energy transition," Jawdat says. "One part of that is facilitating the development of large-scale, high-power, fast-charging networks. But, beyond that, we see this technology as a potential solution in other areas related to the clean energy transition."

He shares more about what's next for Revterra on the podcast. Listen to the interview below — or wherever you stream your podcasts — and subscribe for weekly episodes.


The energy industry is finally prioritizing new technology and greener energy — both in light of and in spite of a global pandemic. Photo via Getty Images

Overheard: Here’s what these energy VCs think of the pandemic’s effect on the energy transition

eavesdropping online

In a lot of ways, venture capital firms are tasked with predicting the future. They put money into tech and business services that are going to disrupt the status quo, and energy VCs are tasked with taking bets on the energy transition.

At a virtual event as a part of the 18th annual Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum, which is taking place online this week, a group of panelists moderated by Sandy Guitar, managing partner at the HX Venture Fund, discussed how the pandemic has affected the energy transition. The group of experts talked about the future of work, decarbonization, and more.

If you missed the event, here are a few key moments from the discussion.

“The role of digitization is going to be huge. The pandemic really exacerbated just how far oil and gas had been behind in that.”

Sean Ebert, partner at Altira. Ebert explains that when times are good for energy companies, it's hard to get the attention of executives to introduce new technologies. Now, corporations are having to invest in tech that allows their employees to be mobile and remote.

“There’s never been a better time to invest in energy technology. … We are at a point where we can get the type of returns [we look for.]”

George Coyle, managing partner at Energy Innovation Capital. Coyle adds that he's seen the pandemic effect major growth opportunities in energy startups in his portfolio.

“What we have is a sense of urgency that didn’t exist 15 years ago. Public companies virtually all have a sustainability report and need to show some sort of progress."

Cory Steffek, managing director at Ara Partners. He adds, "I really think the opportunity in the near term is de-risking software or hardware technologies and showing people that you can construct assets where they can deploy substantial amounts of capital profitably. If you have that, from a returns standpoint, you have something that should generate significant yield."

“The part we have been focused on is how can you make the conventional more efficient, so energy-on-energy conversion is even better.”

Hossam Elbadawy, managing director at SCF Ventures and technology partner at SCF Partners. He's referring to the question of whether to prioritize new low-carbon innovations or to make conventional methods more sustainable. His observation is that the solution is going to be a hybrid of both.

“When we think about the future of work, we think about what are the capabilities going to be required in the future to be able to improve operations in the field today?”

Ricardo Angel, managing director and CEO of PIVA. Angel adds that, "a lot of activities might be replaced by AI," and he and his firm are thinking about how they can go about "developing the skills for the people who will be working with those tools."

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Innovation Labs @ TMC set to launch for early-stage life science startups

moving in

The Texas Medical Center will launch its new Innovation Labs @ TMC in January 2026 to better support life science startups working within the innovation hub.

The new 34,000-square-foot space, located in the TMC Innovation Factory at 2450 Holcombe Blvd., will feature labs and life science offices and will be managed by TMC. The space was previously occupied by Johnson & Johnson's JLABS @TMC, a representative from TMC tells InnovationMap. JLABS will officially vacate the space in January.

TMC shares that the expansion will allow it to "open its doors to a wider range of life science visionaries," including those in the TMC BioBridge program and Innovation Factory residents. It will also allow TMC to better integrate with the Innovation Factory's offerings, such as the TMC Health Tech accelerator, TMC Center for Device Innovation and TMC Venture Fund.

“We have witnessed an incredible demand for life science space, not only at the TMC Innovation Factory, but also on the TMC Helix Park research campus,” William McKeon, president and CEO of the TMC, said in a news release. “Innovation Labs @ TMC enables us to meet this rising demand and continue reshaping how early-stage life science companies grow, connect, and thrive.”

“By bringing together top talent, cutting-edge research, and industry access in one central hub, we can continue to advance Houston’s life science ecosystem," he continued.

The TMC Innovation Factory has hosted 450 early-stage ventures since it launched in 2015. JLABS first opened in the space in 2016 with the goal of helping health care startups commercialize.

13 Houston businesses appear on Time's best midsize companies of 2025

new report

A Houston-based engineering firm KBR tops the list of Texas businesses that appear on Time magazine and Statista’s new ranking of the country’s best midsize companies.

KBR holds down the No. 30 spot, earning a score of 91.53 out of 100. Time and Statista ranked companies based on employee satisfaction, revenue growth, and transparency about sustainability. All 500 companies on the list have annual revenue from $100 million to $10 billion.

According to the Great Place to Work organization, 87 percent of KBR employees rate the company as a great employer.

“At KBR, we do work that matters,” the company says on the Great Place to Work website. “From climate change to space exploration, from energy transition to national security, we are helping solve the great challenges of our time through the high-end, differentiated solutions we provide. In doing so, we’re striving to create a better, safer, more sustainable world.”

KBR recorded revenue of $7.7 billion in 2024, up 11 percent from the previous year.

The other 12 Houston-based companies that landed on the Time/Statista list are:

  • No. 141 Houston-based MRC Global. Score: 85.84
  • No. 168 Houston-based Comfort Systems USA. Score: 84.72
  • No. 175 Houston-based Crown Castle. Score: 84.51
  • No. 176 Houston-based National Oilwell Varco. Score: 84.50
  • No. 234 Houston-based Kirby. Score: 82.48
  • No. 266 Houston-based Nabor Industries. Score: 81.59
  • No. 296 Houston-based Archrock. Score: 80.17
  • No. 327 Houston-based Superior Energy Services. Score: 79.38
  • No. 332 Kingwood-based Insperity. Score: 79.15
  • No. 359 Houston-based CenterPoint Energy. Score: 78.02
  • No. 461 Houston-based Oceaneering. Score: 73.87
  • No. 485 Houston-based Skyward Specialty Insurance. Score: 73.15

Additional Texas companies on the list include:

  • No. 95 Austin-based Natera. Score: 87.26
  • No. 199 Plano-based Tyler Technologies. Score: 86.49
  • No. 139 McKinney-based Globe Life. Score: 85.88
  • No. 140 Dallas-based Trinity Industries. Score: 85.87
  • No. 149 Southlake-based Sabre. Score: 85.58
  • No. 223 Dallas-based Brinker International. Score: 82.87
  • No. 226 Irving-based Darling Ingredients. Score: 82.86
  • No. 256 Dallas-based Copart. Score: 81.78
  • No. 276 Coppell-based Brink’s. Score: 80.90
  • No. 279 Dallas-based Topgolf. Score: 80.79
  • No. 294 Richardson-based Lennox. Score: 80.22
  • No. 308 Dallas-based Primoris Services. Score: 79.96
  • No. 322 Dallas-based Wingstop Restaurants. Score: 79.49
  • No. 335 Fort Worth-based Omnicell. Score: 78.95
  • No. 337 Plano-based Cinemark. Score: 78.91
  • No. 345 Dallas-based Dave & Buster’s. Score: 78.64
  • No. 349 Dallas-based ATI. Score: 78.44
  • No. 385 Frisco-based Addus HomeCare. Score: 76.86
  • No. 414 New Braunfels-based Rush Enterprises. Score: 75.75
  • No. 431 Dallas-based Comerica Bank. Score: 75.20
  • No. 439 Austin-based Q2 Software. Score: 74.85
  • No. 458 San Antonio-based Frost Bank. Score: 73.94
  • No. 475 Fort Worth-based FirstCash. Score: 73.39
  • No. 498 Irving-based Nexstar Broadcasting Group. Score: 72.71

Texas ranks as No. 1 most financially distressed state, says new report

Money Woes

Experiencing financial strife is a nightmare of many Americans, but it appears to be a looming reality for Texans, according to a just-released WalletHub study. It names Texas the No. 1 most "financially distressed" state in America.

To determine the states with the most financially distressed residents, WalletHub compared all 50 states across nine metrics in six major categories, such as average credit scores, the share of people with "accounts in distress" (meaning an account that's in forbearance or has deferred payments), the one-year change in bankruptcy filings from March 2024, and search interest indexes for "debt" and "loans."

Joining Texas among the top five most distressed states are Florida (No. 2), Louisiana (No. 3), Nevada (No. 4), and South Carolina (No. 5).

Texas' new ranking as the most financially distressed state in 2025 may be unexpected, WalletHub says, considering the state has a "bigger GDP than most countries" and still has one of the top 10 best economies in the nation (even though that ranking is also lower than it was in previous years).

Even so, Texas residents are stretching themselves very thin financially this year. Texans had the ninth lowest average credit scores nationwide during the first quarter of 2025, the study found, and Texans had the sixth-highest increase in non-business-related bankruptcy filings over the last year, toppling 22 percent.

"Texas also had the third-highest number of accounts in forbearance or with deferred payments per person, and the seventh-highest share of people with these distressed accounts, at 7.1 percent," the report said.

This is where Texas ranked across the study's six key dimensions, where No. 1 means "most distressed:"

  • No. 5 – "Loans" search interest index rank
  • No. 6 – Change in bankruptcy filings from March 2024 to March 2025 rank
  • No. 7 – Average number of accounts in distress rank
  • No. 8 – People with accounts in distress rank
  • No. 13 – Credit score rank and “debt” search interest index rank
Examining these financial factors on the state level is important for understanding how Americans are faring with economic issues like inflation, unemployment rates, or natural disasters, according to WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo.


"When you combine data about people delaying payments with other metrics like bankruptcy filings and credit score changes, it paints a good picture of the overall economic trends of a state," Lupo said.

On the other side of the spectrum, states like Hawaii (No. 50), Vermont (No. 49), and Alaska (No. 48) are the least financially distressed states in America.

The top 10 states with the most people in financial distress in 2025 are:

  • No. 1 – Texas
  • No. 2 – Florida
  • No. 3 – Louisiana
  • No. 4 – Nevada
  • No. 5 – South Carolina
  • No. 6 – Oklahoma
  • No. 7 – North Carolina
  • No. 8 – Mississippi
  • No. 9 – Kentucky
  • No. 10 – Alabama
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A version of this article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.