A New Stage for Greentown Labs Houston: The Climatetech Summit
Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week is back for its third annual year. This year brings a notable change: founding partner Greentown Labs is expanding its anchor event into a full day of programming across three venues on Wednesday, September 16 — Greentown Houston's 2026 Climatetech Summit.
No founder succeeds alone
For five years, Greentown Labs has backed climate and energy startups from its incubator in the Ion District — the first of its kind in Houston — and helped shape Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week since day one. That belief has anchored its programming each year, built around the founders, mentors, and communities behind the work. Here's a look back at what Greentown has brought to past editions.
2024
Climatetech Innovation Festival: Stories from Schools to Startups. During the inaugural week, this half-day of programming connected the university pipeline to the startup floor. Founder journeys — including keynotes from SUPERGirls SHINE Foundation's Loretta Williams Gurnell and GigaDAC's Harrison Rice — ran alongside breakthrough-tech talks on forever chemicals, virtual power plants, and decarbonized steel. A founders' panel closed out the morning with sector perspectives on climate impact across manufacturing, electricity, and resiliency.
2025
From Local to Global: Helping Climatetech Startups Succeed Internationally. Held at the Ion, this panel turned the conversation outward: moderated by Greentown's Lawson Gow, it drew perspectives from an Australian founder who scaled into the U.S., a Nordic startup incubator, and Australian trade officials, followed by flash pitches from ten founders across Norway, Australia, and Houston.
ACCEL Year 3 Showcase. The ACCEL Showcase celebrated the third cohort of the accelerator Greentown runs with Browning the Green Space for BIPOC and other underrepresented founders. A panel on transitioning into climatetech as an underrepresented founder paired with pitches from eight cohort startups, their work spanning cleaner ammonia, rare-earth recovery, and plastic-to-fuel conversion.
Bet on the entrepreneur
September 16 unfolds across three venues and three acts: a morning of big-stage keynotes and panels, a midday of startup showcase and lightning pitches, and an evening of head-to-head pitching and happy hour. Here's how the day breaks down
8:00 AM–12:15 PM → The Ion
The summit kicks off with welcome remarks from Greentown Labs CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter, followed by a keynote fireside chat with Fervo Energy CEO Tim Latimer on scaling Wall Street's biggest clean energy IPO. From there, the morning moves to panels covering what it takes for climatetech companies to scale, the U.S. nuclear renaissance, and the energy demands of the AI boom.
🔗 Hear from Georgina Campbell Flatter on Houston's influence in the energy transition.
12:30 PM – 4:00 PM → Greentown Labs Houston
Midday moves to Greentown Labs Houston for lunch, an open house, and a startup showcase. Lightning pitches and hands-on time put attendees face-to-face with 50+ member startups working across climate, energy, and industrial verticals.
🔗 See who's building at Greentown Houston.
5:00 PM – 9:00 PM → Continental Club
The day closes out at Continental Club with a pitch competition and happy hour. Startups compete for a grand prize while attendees' network with founders, investors, and energy-transition leaders.
Where the right people find each other
Moving Greentown Houston's Climatetech Summit to Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week — it's a bet that the biggest problems, like meeting rising energy demand while cutting emissions, get solved when founders, investors, corporates, and policymakers share a room instead of working in silos.
As Ingrid Velasco, Director of Strategic Programs & Events, puts it:
"There is a tremendous amount of work happening behind the scenes to solve our global climate challenges. Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week is a unique opportunity to get a sneak peek at what the latest solutions are and get a sense of where we are going next."
For Greentown, this means opening its Houston labs so attendees can see the latest solutions from its climatetech startups up close and get a read on where the field is headed.
Save your seat
The Climatetech Summit is the premier gathering of the people accelerating the climate, energy, and industrial transformation. "Greentown Houston is thrilled to bring our Climatetech Summit to Houston Energy + Climate Startup Week this year. Our flagship event brings together climatetech founders, investors, partners, and friends to share knowledge and champion our shared vision for the future of energy: more energy, less emissions," says Kelsey Kearns, Head of Houston, Greentown Labs.
The climate challenge has never been a single problem with a single solution. It runs through every system that shapes how we live, from how we power our lives and move through cities to how we build, grow food, and manage the natural resources the whole planet depends on. Meeting it takes innovation across all of those systems at once, and it takes the full ecosystem moving together. "I'm deeply grateful to be part of this incredible ecosystem and to watch it showcase the hard work each and every person has put in”, Kearns said.
At Greentown, the bet is on the entrepreneur, and no founder succeeds alone.
If you're a founder, an investor, or a corporate partner working in energy, climate, or industrial tech, the agenda was built with you in mind. Over the day, you will hear from industry leaders, step inside Greentown's labs to meet the startups building the technology and connect with the dealmakers and operators shaping what comes next.
This is where the right people find each other.
