Houston Energy Startups You Met in 2025: Where Are They Now
Last September, founders from around the globe came together at the 2025 Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week to pitch their ideas, meet investors and forge partnerships to scale solutions for the world's growing energy and climate tech demands.
Nearly a year later, here's what a handful of them have been up to since.
Deep Fission
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Deep Fission pitched at Halliburton Labs' Finalists Pitch Day, presenting its Gravity Reactor, a small modular reactor engineered to sit in a borehole roughly a mile underground and use rock and water pressure for containment and cooling. It had just been selected for the U.S. Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program.
Over the past year, Deep Fission raised $80 million and formed a strategic relationship with Blue Owl Capital to deploy reactors for data center power. It filed for a Nasdaq IPO in May at a valuation of roughly $1.66 billion, then priced a smaller offering in June that brought in about $40 million, and has started moving toward a test site in Kansas. Its non-binding customer pipeline has grown to as much as 18.5 gigawatts.
🔗 Learn more about Deep Fission.
Photo: Deep Fission Co-Founder, CEO, Board Chair, Elizabeth Muller during Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day.
Ammobia
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Ammobia was named one of the 10 Most Promising Companies at the 22nd Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum, presenting its "Haber-Bosch 2.0" reactor for producing clean ammonia at far lower pressure and temperature than the standard process.
Over the past year, Ammobia won Shell's New Energy Challenge in the fall, then closed a $7.5 million seed round in January 2026 backed by Shell Ventures, Air Liquide, MOL Switch, and Chevron Technology Ventures. CEO Karen Baert took the company's roadmap to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Photo: Ammobia Co-Founder, CEO, Karen Baert during Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum.
Found Industries (formerly Found Energy)
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Found Energy pitched at Halliburton Labs' Finalists Pitch Day, showing off an aluminum-thermal system that pulls carbon-free heat and hydrogen out of scrap aluminum to decarbonize heavy industry.
Over the past year, operating as Found Industries, the company completes its 100 kW power system pilot, including a vertically integrated catalyst production plant. They have also expanded from aluminum fuel into critical metals, using DOE support to build a domestic supply chain for gallium and other materials. In May 2026, they signed an MOU with ARES Strategic Mining to recover gallium and germanium from Utah's Lost Sheep Mine.
🔗 Learn more about Found Industries.
Photo: Found Industries Co-Founder, CEO, Peter Godart during Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day.
Noon Energy
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Noon Energy pitched at Halliburton Labs' Finalists Pitch Day, presenting an ultra-long-duration battery that stores energy for 100 or more hours using carbon and oxygen instead of scarce metals like lithium.
Over the past year, Noon unveiled a multi-day baseload demonstration of its storage system at a solar site in Yolo County, California, backed by an $8.76 million California Energy Commission grant (January 2026). In April it signed an agreement with Meta to reserve up to 1 GW / 100 GWh of capacity for data centers, starting with a 25 MW / 2.5 GWh project targeted for 2028.
🔗 Learn more about Noon Energy
Photo: Noon Energy C-Founder, CEO, Chris Graves during Halliburton Labs Finalists Pitch Day
Capwell Services
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Capwell delivered a flash pitch at From Local to Global: Helping Climatetech Startups Succeed Internationally, a Greentown Labs session at the Ion, where the Houston-based startup showed off its modular, skid-mounted methane-capture units built for the small, low-flow vents across oil and gas operations that have long been too costly to capture.
Over the past year, Capwell landed a minority investment from Artemis Energy Partners, the energy-transition firm founded by Bobby Tudor, to scale manufacturing and expand pilots and field-service capacity. Capwell's units capture methane from vents under 50 MSCFD and route it into the producer's sales line instead of flaring it, turning a compliance cost into revenue, and the company participates in the DOE's Methane Emissions Reduction Program.
HIVE (Hive Autonomy)
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, one of several Norwegian startups that came to Houston, was a presenting company at the Greentown Labs “From Local to Global: Helping Climatetech Startups Succeed Internationally,” where it pitched its "silicon brain," a machine-agnostic AI platform that retrofits existing industrial equipment like wheel loaders, excavators, and forklifts so they can run autonomously.
Over the past year, HIVE raised $15 million, led by SuperSeed with participation from Veriten, Skyfall Ventures, and Nysnø, and is scaling deployments across Scandinavia, with offices in Norway and London and a U.S. expansion underway. On Norway's exposed Vikafjellet mountain crossing, for example, a HIVE-retrofitted wheel loader now lets crews clear avalanche zones by remote supervision instead of waiting hours for on-site sign-off.
🔗 Learn more about about HIVE.
Photo: HIVE Co- Founder and CCO Fredrik Bringager as a speaking company during Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum.
Celadyne Technologies
During Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week 2025, Celadyne was named one of the 10 Most Promising Companies at the 22nd Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum for its membrane technology designed to make hydrogen fuel cells and electrolyzers more durable and efficient.
Over the past year, Celadyne secured a $250,000 investment from the University of Texas Seed Fund in spring 2026 to scale its Dura and Electra membrane products across defense, industrial, and transportation uses. The company continues to position its durable-membrane approach as a drop-in path to cheaper, longer-lasting fuel cells.
Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week returns this September — bigger, bolder, and ready to spotlight the next wave of startup innovation. Build your schedule today.
