Greentown Houston’s 2025 Climatetech Summit Dives into ‘Climatetech 3.0’
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Greentown Houston’s Climatetech Summit explored the current moment in climatetech, which speakers deemed “climatetech 3.0.” They depicted an era defined by burgeoning tech’s cost-saving benefits, as policy incentives wane and few customers are willing to pay green premiums—emphasizing that economically feasible solutions are beneficial to the industry’s long-term success.
The event celebrated climate and energy entrepreneurs, highlighting their technologies and illuminating pathways for industry-wide collaboration. It brought together hundreds of entrepreneurs, corporate leaders, investors, policymakers, and other climate champions, featured a speaking program with top climate leaders—including a keynote from Arnold Ventures Co-founder and Co-Chair John Arnold. A startup showcase offered attendees the chance to network with our incredible Greentown Houston startups and see their work in the prototyping lab.
Check out details of the summit below!
Greentown Houston’s Climatetech Summit kicked off with opening remarks from Greentown member Chris Buckner (the event’s emcee and CRO of Shoreless.ai), Houston Mayor John Whitmire, and Greentown CEO Georgina Campbell Flatter. Mayor Whitmire encouraged the audience to double down on climate innovation, while Flatter celebrated the power of collaboration—Houston and Boston, energy and climate, and innovation and scale.
“How do we deliver more energy with fewer emissions—faster than ever before? How do we ensure prosperity reaches everyone—and build the good jobs of the future right here at home?” Flatter asked.
Her answer: innovation clusters that serve as landing pads for climatetech entrepreneurs and help propel their technologies toward commercialization.
Keynote speaker John Arnold then took the stage for a fireside chat moderated by Flatter. His philanthropy Arnold Ventures supports research to understand the root causes of America’s most persistent and pressing problems, as well as evidence-based solutions to address them.
Their conversation explored how energy innovations can lower energy costs, increase reliability, reduce emissions, and ensure American competitiveness—with a special focus on how these dynamics are playing out in Houston, a longtime energy leader and a burgeoning leader of the energy transition.
“Energy equals prosperity—you cannot have prosperity without energy abundance. How can we scale new sources at the commercial level? Any solution that has an affordability tradeoff is inherently unstable. Scale requires something to be cost competitive, [though] I do think there’s a role for subsidies in nascent technologies.” – John Arnold
Then came a book launch for Disciplined Entrepreneurship for Climate and Energy Ventures: 24 Steps to Build Solutions for People and the Planet. Co-author and climatetech expert Ben Soltoff introduced this new edition of the bestselling book from the faculty behind MIT’s esteemed Climate & Energy Ventures course—the first version focused on climate ventures. He also led a discussion with Helix Earth CEO and Co-founder Rawand Rasheed, a Greentown member who has leveraged the framework.
TEX-E Executive Director Sandy Guitar then took the stage to discuss how her nonprofit has adapted the learnings from the Climate & Energy Ventures course to foster energy and climate entrepreneurship at Texas universities.
Next up was the first set of lightning pitches from six Greentown startups:
MCatalysis, which produces low-cost, clean synthetic fuels and chemicals by upcycling waste-carbon resources, such as agricultural residues, plastic waste, and waste-gas streams.
Teknobuilt, a construction-technology company offering an AI platform to help all aspects of program management and execution for workflow automation, collaborative manual tasks, and siloed systems.
Helix Earth, which is revolutionizing the way we do air conditioning and carbon capture and sequestration by leveraging cutting-edge technology, originally developed for space at NASA.
10DQ, whose redox loop battery uses novel, water-based electrolytes to store energy in dense, low-cost, earth abundant battery materials.
Janta Power, which is pioneering the world’s first scalable, 3D-solar-tower technology.
CLS Wind, whose self-erecting wind-turbine system results in faster, safer, cheaper, and more efficient onshore and offshore operations.
A group of local leaders then explored the question, “What is climatetech?”—diving into how the industry it defines is evolving in response to macroeconomic and sociopolitical conditions.
“What I define as climatetech 3.0 is the ability to exist as a company, to scale as a company, without the policies to support you and without the green premiums,” she said.
“It’s no longer about subverting profit for sustainability; it’s the marriage of the two,” added Kyle Judah, executive director of Rice University’s Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship.
Speakers included:
Rice University’s Liu Idea Lab for Innovation & Entrepreneurship’s Executive Director Kyle Judah
The next group of startup lightning pitches featured:
Neuralix, which offers a complete suite of rapid, customizable templates for data lifecycle with an AI-driven framework designed for the energy and manufacturing sectors.
Ententia, a startup offering purpose-built, generative AI for industry—delivering operational impact with speed and precision.
LOCOAL, which converts materials into clean energy, biofuels, and captured carbon that functions as a commodity as well as a carbon credit.
SpiralWave, which is reinventing carbon capture with capillary electrolysis—for compact, powerful carbon capture anywhere, at scale.
BiaTech Corporation, a multisensory AI-fusion startup for energy and natural resource infrastructure immersion.
Judah then welcomed Greentown member and Rice University spinout Solidec to the stage to announce its partnership and pilot project with Lynas Rare Earths, the world’s only commercial producer of separated light and heavy rare-earth oxides outside China.
GE Vernova’s Managing Director, Ventures and Licensing Sameer Bandhu introduced the next segment: “Lessons from the Shale Revolution: An Energy-Transition Roadmap?”
This panel looked at the shale revolution—which created hundreds of thousands of jobs, made the United States a top energy exporter, and helped establish Houston as a worldwide energy center—as a case study. Speakers explored what partnerships, policies, and investment models enabled the core technology to scale and become cost-effective; what shortfalls we can learn from; and how the energy transition can be an engine for a similar level of innovation, energy abundance, economic impact, and global leadership—all while tackling climate change.
Greentown Labs Board Chair, Artemis Energy Partners CEO, and Houston Energy Transition Initiative at the Greater Houston Partnership Chairman Bobby Tudor
University of Texas at Austin Professor of Public Affairs Varun Rai (moderator)
Flatter closed out the speaking portion, underlining key messages of the day—including this moment’s emphasis on reliable, affordable, and sustainable technologies.
The Greentown Houston Climatetech Summit 2025 wrapped up with an evening of networking at Axelrad Houston. We’d like to send a huge thank you to the speakers, sponsors, and all attendees who joined us for this year’s event!
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