Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum Selects Most Promising New Companies

HOUSTON – Ten new ventures were named the “Most Promising Companies” at the 19th annual Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum.

More than 90 energy ventures, 70 investor groups and 40 speakers connected at the forum Sept. 15 at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business. The forum is the premier energy tech venture capitalism conference to connect energy innovators, investors, corporations and the energy ecosystem. At the conclusion, the investors voted for their 10 favorite companies during their office hours, where nearly 700 meetings were facilitated.

The winners:

· Arolytics leverages methane emissions data to support cost savings, regulatory compliance and effective emissions-abatement strategies.

· Atargis Energy has developed an innovative twin hydrofoil-based wave energy converter technology that has the ability to deliver affordable electric power at grid-scale from ocean waves.

· Compact Membrane Systems creates products that enable large industrial capital-intensive operations to reduce risk, increase yield, lower costs and operate in a greener, cleaner and more efficient way.

· Dimensional Energy makes it possible to use carbon dioxide to manufacture a replacement for oil at a lower price through its carbon utilization platform for carbon-intensive industries.

· Kanin Energy is a development company that focuses on transforming industrial waste heat into emission-free power with no capital needed from host facilities.

· Orbital Sidekick’s monitoring service uses satellites to provide intelligence from anywhere on the planet to help commercial and government organizations meet their goals for sustainable operations, security and environmental, social and governance.

· Power to Hydrogen created an advanced reversible fuel cell technology that cost-effectively and energy-efficiently converts electricity and water into high-purity hydrogen and oxygen and, when needed, back to power.

· Quino Energy produces flow battery systems with over eight hours of energy storage that are cheaper and safer than lithium-ion.

· STARS Technology is an original equipment manufacturer of compact, process-intensive hydrogen generators.

· Syzygy Plasmonics is commercializing a deep-decarbonization platform dedicated to cleaning up the emissions-heavy chemical industry using breakthrough technology pioneered in the Laboratory for Nanophotonics at Rice University to harness energy from LED light to power chemical reactions.

The 90 participating companies have raised more than $690 million in total funding and include technologies in battery and power storage, carbon capture utilization and storage, chemical manufacturing, climate financial tech, combustion, energy efficiency, fluid storage, grid, hydrogen, materials, mobility, oilfield technologies, renewable energies, software, waste heat recovery, water treatment and more.

The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship is Rice University’s nationally recognized initiative devoted to the support of technology commercialization, entrepreneurship education and the launch of technology companies. It was formed as a strategic alliance of three Rice schools: the George R. Brown School of Engineering, the Wiess School of Natural Sciences and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business. Since inception of the Rice Alliance, more than 2,950 early-stage companies have participated at more than 250 programs hosted by the Rice Alliance and raised more than $22.7 billion in funding.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,240 undergraduates and 3,972 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 1 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.