Click here for a PDF of this news release.
HOUSTON – (Sept. 18, 2009) - The Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship (Rice Alliance) announced the most promising Energy & Clean Technology companies at the 7th Annual Energy & Clean Technology Venture Forum in Houston this week. Energy & Clean Technology companies showcased their new ventures at the largest venture capital conference in the Southwest with 625 attendees, including investors, venture capitalists, industry representatives, business leaders, service providers, and entrepreneurs.
The one-day event culminated in an announcement of the Most Promising Energy & Clean Technology Companies chosen from nearly 60 presenters and judged by the Rice Alliance Energy & Clean Technology Advisory Board, based on the companies’ business plan or elevator pitch presentations. The elevator pitch simulates meeting an investor on an elevator and having only 90 seconds to convince them to consider investing in your company.
Four of the ten most promising elevator pitch companies are based in Houston: Asha Power, Inc., Enistic, Inc., Orbital Traction, Ltd., and PollutionTech, LLC. The other six companies represented diverse regions, including Austin, TX; Fort Worth, TX; College Station, TX; Lake Charles, LA; Short Hills, NJ and Virginia Beach, VA.
In addition, five other new energy and clean technology companies were pre-selected to present their 10-minute business plan presentation at the forum, and as one of the chosen five, were also named a Most Promising Energy & Clean Technology Company.
Rice Alliance managing director Brad Burke, announced the winners of the Most Promising Energy & Clean Technology Company awards at the event. “Every year the quality of companies improves. Many of the companies at this year’s event have developed prototypes, obtained proven results and are on their second round of funding. This makes them more appealing to investors, who have also expressed appreciation for the quality of the companies.”
Top Five Most Promising Companies, based on their business plan presentations:
APO Offshore (Houston, TX) - developing
innovative advances in remote monitoring and predictive
analysis for surface equipment on offshore platforms to reduce downtimes
on producing wells.
Bluenergy Solarwind (Santa Fe, MN) - developing double-helix, solarwind turbines with solar cells encapsulated on the wind vanes.
Solterra Renewable Technologies (Tempe, AZ) - developing a solar technology that replaces silicon wafer
based solar cells with low cost highly efficient Quantum Dot based solar cells.
TerraSpark Geosciences (Boulder, CO) - TerraSpark is developing
3D seismic interpretation and directional well path planning software for
exploration and development.
Widetronix (Ithaca, NY) - developing low power, long life, self-charging
batteries for microelectronics.
Most Promising Companies, based on their elevator pitch presentations:
Orbital Traction, Ltd. (Houston) - developing industry proven continuously variable transmission technology – the Milner Continuously Variable Transmission or MCVT – for a broad range of applications in the mechanical power transmission and motion control markets, including automotive, recreational vehicle, hybrid electric, and wind power products.
Enistic, Inc. (Houston) - developing wirelessly monitored, Web‐controlled power strips to improve energy efficiency, and reduce costs.
PollutionTech, LLC (Houston) - PollutionTech, LLC is a green‐technology, LEED Certified firm focused on
lowering the Environmental Impact through optimization of Air Pollution Control Equipment.
IceCycle (Austin, TX) - IceCycle’s system cools water during nighttime and uses the cold water to cool
buildings during the day – with the A/C compressors OFF allowing 95% of commercial buildings and
millions of residences to cost‐effectively reduce peak period electrical consumption for air conditioning by 80% or more.
Fifo Technologies, Inc. (Fort Worth, TX) – developing an artificial lift system that would be cost‐effective for low‐volume oil wells, including previously abandoned wells.
KGRA Energy, LLC (Short Hills, NJ) - develops small‐scale, geothermal power generation assets. The Company’s business model is unique for four primary reasons: 1) the fuel is free; 2) there is no drilling involved; 3) the equipment is field proven with multiple years of up‐time; and 4) the modular power plants are scalable and capable of rapid deployment.
Phage Biofuels, Inc. (College Station, TX) – Phage Biofuels, Inc.’s products and services are based on a broad patent pending application of phage to mitigate biocorrosion, reservoir souring and remediation of bacterial contamination.
CPS Biofuels, Inc., (Virginia Beach, VA) - CPS Biofuels is an alternative energy company with a unique process for producing GTBE (glycerol tert‐butyl ether), an environmentally friendly fuel oxygenate made from recovering and purifying crude glycerol (a byproduct of biodiesel production) and reacting it with isobutylene.
Jet Drill Well Services, LLC (Lake Charles, LA) - launching its innovative and affordable Jet‐Drill™ procedure, a unique green‐friendly method to stimulate hydrocarbon recovery on many of the world’s oil, gas and coal‐bed methane wells.
Asha Power, Inc. (Houston) – developing a system to efficiently burn a wide variety of fuels – from wet pulp/paper or chemical waste to sludge – in standard gas turbine engine process, delivering 2.5 to 40 MW of electricity and steam at significantly lower costs and greater flexibility than traditional power generation.
The Forum was supported by Chevron Technology Ventures, Energy Ventures, Shell, Kenda Capital, Huron Consulting Group, Canada Consulate General, Winstead, Leyendecker & Associates, Hart Energy Publishing with supporting organizations Greater Houston Partnership, and Opportunity Houston and media sponsors Houston Business Journal and the BusinessMakers Radio Show.
