The Energy Tech Venture Forum (ETVF), hosted by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, will convene innovators and investors at a Sept. 12 conference to connect ventures with Houston’s energy ecosystem. The forum is an anchor event for the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week, happening Sept. 9-13. This week is a citywide initiative to bring together and celebrate the momentum in Houston driving the energy transition. Many events are hosted at the Ion, Houston’s innovation hub powered by Rice University.
A total of 90 companies, including the latest cohort from the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator, will meet with and pitch to hundreds of corporate venture capitalists (VCs) and investors – Rice Alliance facilitates more than 700 meetings between investors and startups every year at this event. The participating companies have collected raised more than $1.09B in funding and are from 7 countries. David Baldwin, partner at Houston-based SCF Partners and co-founder of OpenMinds, and Rachel Slaybaugh, partner at DCVC, a multi-billion dollar VC firm based in the Bay area, will give the opening and closing keynotes, respectively.
The Ion and the Houston Energy Transition Initiative will also host a Sept. 9 kickoff and block party for Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week. The inaugural Activate Houston Fellows, which includes several Rice-affiliated startups, will host a welcome for the 11 inaugural fellows Sept. 10 at the Ion. Rice President Reginald DesRoches will host a fireside chat with author Walter Isaacson at the Halliburton Labs’ Pitch Day Sept. 13 at the Ion. Numerous other events organized by Houston organizations will be hosted at the Ion throughout the week.
Class 4 of Rice Alliance’s Clean Energy Accelerator will culminate in Demo Day Pitches featured during ETVF which includes 12 ventures that are driving innovation in advanced materials, carbon management, carbon accounting, digital technologies, hydrogen, solar, energy efficiency, energy storage and corrosion detection. The accelerator supports the success of emerging, tech-enabled ventures that are advancing decarbonization solutions and efficiency strategies to accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy.
Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week is a community-led effort to showcase Houston’s leadership in the energy transition and is bringing together startups, investors and corporations from around the world. It is organized by a group of regional organizations, academic institutions and corporations in the Houston ecosystem, including Rice Alliance, Halliburton Labs, Greentown Labs, Activate, Digital Wildcatters and the Houston Energy Transition Initiative. Individual investors, startups and organizations are independently hosting events around the city during the week.