It’s finally here. A seed accelerator (similar to ycombinator, TechStars and Capital Factory) in Houston, Texas – the Energy Capital of the World, the program is designed to help emerging businesses accelerate their growth through an infusion of seed capital, an intense mentoring program and direct connections to industry insiders. Startups [...]]]>

It’s finally here. A seed accelerator (similar to ycombinator, TechStars and Capital Factory) in Houston, Texas – the Energy Capital of the World, the program is designed to help emerging businesses accelerate their growth through an infusion of seed capital, an intense mentoring program and direct connections to industry insiders. Startups will apply to the program and be selected by a the leaders of the organization to come to Houston to work full-time on their ideas. Over 40 mentors have already agreed to participate (full disclosure: I’m one of them). With the help and support of other startup organizations like HTC, Rice Alliance and funds like DFJMercury, Surge Accelerator will drive innovation and showcase the strengths of Houston as the Energy Capital.

http://www.surgeaccelerator.com

Facebook: SurgeHouston

Twitter: SurgeHouston

]]> http://www.startuphouston.com/2011/09/15/surge-accelerator-launches/feed/ 0 http://www.startuphouston.com/2008/09/17/nano-storage-the-store-gen-grid-and-hurricane-ike/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=nano-storage-the-store-gen-grid-and-hurricane-ike http://www.startuphouston.com/2008/09/17/nano-storage-the-store-gen-grid-and-hurricane-ike/#comments Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:18:28 +0000 hschmidt http://www.startuphouston.com/?p=498 Hurricane Ike has given us a massive object lesson on the importance of implementing the late Rick Smalley’s vision of the Store-Gen Grid (SGG; graphic courtesy Wade Adams at Rice’s Smalley Institute) – a highly distributed network of granular electric production and storage.  One of the elements of the SGG concept is a [...]]]> Hurricane Ike has given us a massive object lesson on the importance of implementing the late Rick Smalley’s vision of the Store-Gen Grid (SGG; graphic courtesy Wade Adams at Rice’s Smalley Institute) – a highly distributed network of granular electric production and storage.  One of the elements of the SGG concept is a household storage unit for about 100 kW-hrs of dispatch energy. 

 

Well, we ain’t there yet.  Of all the standard infrastructure services, only two seem to be reliable in a pinch: cell phones and natural gas.  The electric grid is plainly extremely fragile.  This is a major opportunity for nanotechnology.  With a major power outage in the energy capital of the world, this topic ought to get *lot* more traction, and fast.  So get your thinking caps on.  According to the Houston Chronicle, nearly 3 million people lost power due to the storm.  So I reckon there are about 3 million ready customers for the next big thing in distributed power.  I’m one of them!

 

Now, when considering storage technologies, energy density *really* matters!  Among practical materials, nothing is even comes close to gasoline or diesel fuel.  Just before the storm, my wife was wise enough to ignore my objections and bought a neat little Honda 2kW generator.  I got ten gallons of gas on Friday, and used about five gallons over a 36 hour period.  This was just enough to keep the refrigerator going, charge cell phones, and run a lamp, two fans and a small TV set.  This enabled us to essentially camp-out in our house.  Forget about air conditioning, running the washer/dryer or taking a hot shower (the darned water heater has an electric starter).

 

Here are some representative (volumetric) storage energy densities (from Wikipedia):

 

 

Let’s look at the Lead-Acid Battery (LAB) as an example, since it’s still the workhorse for storing electric energy.  My five gallons of gas would equate to 4,383 liters of lead-acid batteries (LABs) (3.8*5*34.6/0.15).  My total investment for generation and storage was $1020 ($1000 generator, $20 gas).  How much does 4.3 cubic meters of LABs cost again? – about $20-$50/liter?  And how much does it weigh?  I can (and did) carry (lug) the generator and the five gallons of gas myself at the same time. 

 

Overall, electrical storage energy density is worse than chemical storage a good factor of ten or more.  An order of magnitude (or two) is nothing to sneeze at!  It is plain that without sufficient oil/gasoline/diesel, we are in a world of hurt for the foreseeable future.

 

Each of the technologies listed above employs, or can be improved with, nanotechnology or nanostructured materials.  Let’s do a little math and get a handle on the nano-scale challenge involved here.  If gasoline has an energy density of, say, 35 MJ/l, it equivalently contains about 3.5 x 10^-17 Joules per cubic nanometer.  Modeling this as a parallel plate capacitor in vacuum with a 1 nm gap, you get the target energy density with a voltage difference of about 2.8 Volts.  If you use a decent dielectric like TiO₂ (k = 40ε₀) instead of vacuum, you only need 0.44 V.  About 1 V/nm is a pretty stiff electric field, but not larger than those considered routine for ultra-thin gates in the semiconductor industry.  This all seems pretty doable; making the nanowire connections to the outside world will be the tricky part; it’s probably a job for carbon nanotubes or maybe graphene.  Rick would have liked that. 

 

I hope somebody out there gets to work on this pronto!  Even at $100 / liter, it would be a useful technology.  When you get the cost down to about $10 / liter, you’ll be a bona fide hero, and a very wealthy one at that.

 

The event has finally arrived and if you haven’t registered yet, you can here. This is the premiere conference on venture investing in energy technology and will have everyone who is anyone in attendance. I was speaking with Walter Ulrich of the HTC at Open Coffee this past Thursday and he was very excited about [...]]]>

The event has finally arrived and if you haven’t registered yet, you can here. This is the premiere conference on venture investing in energy technology and will have everyone who is anyone in attendance. I was speaking with Walter Ulrich of the HTC at Open Coffee this past Thursday and he was very excited about the slate of both companies and venture investors who will be at this event. Don’t miss it.

The Rice Alliance has gone and outdone themselves again by nearly doubling the amount of funds that will be awarded at this year’s Business Plan Competition.  They will be awarding over $600,000 dollars in funds for approximately 36 different graduate teams from around the world, which enables them to lay claim to hosting “the largest and [...]]]>

The Rice Alliance has gone and outdone themselves again by nearly doubling the amount of funds that will be awarded at this year’s Business Plan Competition.  They will be awarding over $600,000 dollars in funds for approximately 36 different graduate teams from around the world, which enables them to lay claim to hosting “the largest and richest intercollegiate MBA/graduate-level business plan competition in the world, with more prize money, more teams competing, and more judges than any other competition.”  (Somebody please tell me they are videotaping this thing, because I think this would make a great reality show).  Also, according to their web site, every team will receive some type of cash award so noone goes home empty handed. 

Are you a graduate team with a killer business plan?  You can still register your team by submitting your executive summary before February 21st here and you can find all of the complete details about the event here.

This past Friday morning I had the pleasure of getting out of bed early (again) to attend the Houston Technology Center‘s Education Seminar Series on Raising Capital in Texas Today. Today’s session was entitled, “Raising Funds for Growth: Series B and Beyond“. The moderator for the event was Scott Crist of Aegis Texas Ventures. Our [...]]]>

This past Friday morning I had the pleasure of getting out of bed early (again) to attend the Houston Technology Center‘s Education Seminar Series on Raising Capital in Texas Today. Today’s session was entitled, “Raising Funds for Growth: Series B and Beyond“. The moderator for the event was Scott Crist of Aegis Texas Ventures. Our panel of experts for this seminar were:

• Kemal Farid, CEO of Merrick Systems;
• Daniel S. Parsley, Chairman and CEO of SalvageSale; and
• David Ferdman, President and CEO of CyrusOne.

You can read through the presentation at the link above but here is an overview of what was discussed:

1. The three represented a nice variety of business capitalization history: venture funding (SalvageSale), self-funding (CyrusOne) and bootstrapping (Merrick Systems).
2. Merrick Systems’ need for additional capital was to accelerate growth in both organic and new markets. Rather than look at an equity solution, Merrick Systems put together a senior credit facility with Silicon Valley Bank. This is something that many small business startups fail to look into mostly due to a lack of understanding of this segment of the market. The majority of the startups that I have been involved with were able to secure quality credit from the “venture tech banks” like Silicon Valley Bank, Comerica (through their Technology and Life Sciences team), Square1 Bank and Bridge Bank (if you need any introduction to one of these lenders, send me an email).
3. SalvageSale’s recent financing seemed more like a leveraged MBO than growth capital, although the new investment from Spire Capital is likely a good way to both recapitalize the company and partner with a solid fund with a track record in successful buyouts.
4. CyrusOne effectively sold the company to a private equity group but still has a very active management. Abry Partners has a history here in Houston with their purchase of Caprock back in 2006. What is nice about what Dave Ferdman did was recapitalize the existing investors and provide an infusion of additional capital to fund CyrusOne’s continued growth in data center development.

The biggest takeaway from me is how important your early rounds are in the long term outcome of the company. As in most things, the early decisions tend to have a more material impact on a company’s velocity than do the latter ones. Merrick Systems was able to grow without much of any dilutive impact and is now poised to further grow through senior debt, the second least costly capital next to public debt. SalvageSale confessed to seller’s remorse with their early stage investors but were able to break through and now have a bright road ahead of them. CyrusOne recognized that the future required deeper pockets and made an excellent decision to partner with a long term investor rather than sell out to short term needs for liquidity.

All in all, the three gentlemen were excellent presenters and provided attendees with another quality HTC educational event.

We first mentioned the call for presenters here. The deadline for application has been extended. Executive Summary must be submitted no later than: Friday, January 11, 2008, 10:00 AM CST. In addition, the keynote speaker will be John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company.

I have uploaded the call for presenters here. This is a premiere event [...]]]>

We first mentioned the call for presenters here. The deadline for application has been extended. Executive Summary must be submitted no later than: Friday, January 11, 2008, 10:00 AM CST. In addition, the keynote speaker will be John Hofmeister, President of Shell Oil Company.

I have uploaded the call for presenters here. This is a premiere event so get on the roster as soon as possible.

Houston Technology Center’s Fourth Annual Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference March 6 & 7, 2008 Marriott Houston Westchase

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Application Deadline: Monday, December 10, 2007

Houston Technology Center’s 4th annual Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference will bring together 30 of the most promising emerging energy technology companies with an audience of venture capitalists, private equity, angel and corporate investors and [...]]]>

Houston Technology Center’s
Fourth Annual Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference
March 6 & 7, 2008
Marriott Houston Westchase

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

Application Deadline:
Monday, December 10, 2007

Houston Technology Center’s 4th annual Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference will bring together 30 of the most promising emerging energy technology companies with an audience of venture capitalists, private equity, angel and corporate investors and related financial professionals.

Energy companies seeking new solutions will have an opportunity to identify technologies of interest and meet the people who developed them.

This exciting two-day celebration of innovation offers the best networking and learning opportunities for business, energy and financial professionals.

Visit www.houstontech.org, call (713) 658-1750 or click here to learn more and register.

Only 30 companies will be selected to present their technologies at the conference. Each company will have the opportunity to deliver a two minute elevator pitch as well as a full 9-minute presentation, in addition to a tabletop/booth at the expo.

Click here for Call for Presentations Application

When I first met Walter Ulrich at a Houston Technology Center event, what I gathered most about him was that this guy was the real deal: a true “pocket protector” geek in the most admiring sense of the word. Ulrich has been a pioneer in the information technology sector for almost 40 years. In the [...]]]>

When I first met Walter Ulrich at a Houston Technology Center event, what I gathered most about him was that this guy was the real deal: a true “pocket protector” geek in the most admiring sense of the word. Ulrich has been a pioneer in the information technology sector for almost 40 years. In the 1970′s, Ulrich led the development of the first commercially successful email service. That’s impressive.
During the 1980′s and 1990′s, Ulrich consulted with Fortune 100 company’s on technology and business issues until he became the CEO of Houston-based Mincron Software Systems. After leaving that role, Ulrich was one of two Houston technology professionals to be appointed by Texas Gov. Rick Perry to serve on the advisory committee for the $200 million Emerging Technology Fund.

I had a chance to catch up with Walter this last week; here are some excerpts from our chat:

Josh: I know that you have been in and around technology for many years. How did you come to get involved with the HTC?

Walter: The HTC looked like a place where I could give back as a volunteer, and it turned out to also be the place where much important business goes on.  As someone active in the technology world, active and deep participation in the HTC was not only personally satisfying but it is good for business.

Josh: There are all different perspectives on the HTC’s core mission. How would you characterize your vision?

Walter: We aspire to make Houston a globally recognized center of technology innovation and commercialization, particularly focused on IT and Web 2.0, energy and clean energy technologies, bio/life sciences, nanotechnology and NASA-related aerospace. We have the underlying economic strength and have been building the business infrastructure over the last ten years.  Now it is time to execute successful commercialization by driving successes one emerging company at a time.

Josh: There are many groups around town that all seem to overlap in different respects when it comes to supporting technology development and new business creation (Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, University of Houston Small Business Development Center, HTC, Greater Houston Partnership, Mayor’s Office). From an outsiders perspective, there does not seem to be much collaborative effort among these groups. Is this the case and if so, what can be done to have a more concerted effort to work together?Walter: The many groups represent the strong community infrastructure needed to provide support to emerging technology ventures.  Throughout 2007, the HTC has taken the initiative to collaborate with and support the Rice Alliance, the UH SBDC, BioHouston and many other organizations.  The HTC works closely with the GHP in several areas including serving on the Energy Collaborative, the Technology Infrastructure Committee, and the Marketing Committee.  In addition, the GHP is a partner with the HTC on the Gulf Coast Regional Center of Innovation and Commercialization.  With regard to the Mayor’s office, the HTC works closely with Helen Chang.  The Mayor was the opening speaker for our Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference earlier this year and I have attended events at the Mayor’s request.

Josh: I have been to the HTC site and read that the HTC views itself as both an accelerator and an incubator. I see the accelerator element clearly, but help me understand the level of incubation the the HTC does.

Walter: The HTC is first an accelerator of emerging technology companies that represent a significant technical and business upside for the region.  However, we have several programs that provide support to pre-seed companies including the Educational Seminar Series, the Innovation Pipeline program (with colleges and universities), and the support we provide applicants to the Texas Emerging Technology Fund.

Josh: The are several clear areas of focus for the HTC that I can see: energy, life sciences, information technology, nanatechnology and NASA/aerospace technology. That’s a lot of ground to cover. Does the fact that Houston is a center for energy, life sciences (Medical Center), nanotech (Rice and Smalley Institute as well as CNI) and NASA (Johnson Space Center) leave IT and Web 2.0 behind?

Walter: It is no coincidence that the HTC focuses on areas where the region has strength.  IT seems overshadowed by the breadth of the energy industry and the Texas Medical Center, but it is significant in the region.  Some $4 billion in revenue is generated by the IT sector and that gives us a very strong base.  Furthermore, each of the other sectors that you mention rely heavily on advances in IT to succeed.  So IT is a key focus for the City and the HTC.

Josh: Something that continues to come up in conversations with entrepreneurs is the seeming lack of capital availability in Houston. You and I both know that is not true in the aggregate but there are segments that do not get as much attention as others. Why can’t Houston attract venture capital like Boston or San Francisco? We are a much larger and more diverse population or does that even matter?

Walter: The key to attracting capital is to continue to build successful emerging technology companies that provide superior returns to their investors.  The HTC has been doing that for eight years and our strategic plan calls for us to increase and enhance that capability.  Special events like our Energy Technology Venture Capital Conference March 6 and 7 are bringing investors from around the world to Houston.

Josh: Like I mentioned earlier, you are no stranger to technology. Do you see any parralels or diffences between today’s entrepreneur and those of years before?

Walter: In the old days, and entrepreneur with a great idea or invention could be a mediocre business person and still succeed.  Today, an emerging business must be like ivory snow – 99.44% right – or they will not succeed.  It also takes more money now so the gap between friends and family AND large investors has grown creating a deep valley of death.  That is why the Houston Technology Center and the broad-based community support for new technology companies is so important.

Josh: Recently, I read a research report that showed an increasing number of startups run by immigrants. Are you seeing this through the HTC as well? Are there opportunities for the HTC to work with similar organizations and universities in China, India or elsewhere to bring technology starups here to the US (i.e., commercialization opportunities)?

Walter: One of the strengths of the US is the great diversity of its people and that translates in business to a multitude of complementary strengths.  Immigrants bring fresh ideas from their homelands and from their cultures and make up an important part of the Houston economy.

The HTC has already established relationships with a few of the local Consulates where our work is directly related to theirs.  Our Energy sector, for example, has well-established partnerships with several energy centers around the world.

In addition, the HTC admires the great work of organizations like the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) and provide what support that we can.  In the last six months, we initiated the HTC Americas program as a prelude to HTC Global.  We are starting with a focus on our nearest neighbor, Mexico, but will expand throughout Latin America and then around the world.

Josh: I’ve asked a ton of questions so far. Is there anything you’d like to add?

Walter: The Houston Technology Center salutes you, Startup Houston and all the organizations that join with us to encourage innovation and the commercialization of emerging technology companies. We are implementing a new strategic plan, so we call upon all to participate in our events. Personal participation and financial support is always greatly appreciated.

Thank you Walter very much for your time and dedication to the Houston startup community.