Greentown Labs, the cleantech incubator based in Somerville, is making a major expansion with its second-ever facility: 30,000 square feet of prototyping lab and office space in Houston.
Scheduled to open in the spring of 2021, Greentown Houston will be the city's first climate tech and cleantech-focused incubator. It's a significant shift for the fourth-largest city in the U.S., a large portion of whose economy is driven by the oil and gas industry.
"We're in a moment in time, the energy transition and the realization that [cleantech] needs to be Houston's future," Greentown Labs CEO Emily Reichert told BostInno. "There's probably 10 to 20 more years the city is really going to be able to be driven by oil and gas. They need a new economy that is based on the industry that can reutilize all the talent that exists here, the engineers and scientists."
As the energy capital of the U.S., Houston is already beginning to turn toward clean energy. Mayor Sylvester Turner announced the city's first-ever climate action plan this spring, with the goal of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. Now, Greentown Houston is expected to play a significant role in advancing that plan.
It's a move that was about 15 months in the works. Last May, Turner wrote to Greentown Labs' board of directors expressing an interest in galvanizing the cleantech ecosystem in his city. It was the second time Greentown's board had received a letter like that from a city official; the previous letter, years prior, came from Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, who wanted Greentown Labs to consider setting up shop in Somerville.
That same spring, Reichert attended a conference in Houston and, while in the city, met with city officials and potential partners. It became clear that while Houston had a cleantech innovation scene already, it needed some kind of catalyzing force—and a central hub for entrepreneurs, Reichert said.
"We pulled in a group of entrepreneurs at a moment's notice at a bar, and people were telling me they needed community," she said. "There's a need here. They're very excited about us being here."
Greentown Houston will host about 50 startups at the outset. Like Greentown Labs' home base in Somerville, its programs will cater to a mix of locally based companies and international projects. Greentown Houston is supported by the Greater Houston Partnership, Chevron, Shell, The American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact and a number of other organizations.
Reichert is excited about the potential to tap into Houston's venture capital scene, which she described as "on a different scale" than what's available in Boston. The capital opportunities should benefit Boston, too. In addition to serving as a hub for Houston-area startups, Greentown Houston is also intended to be a bridge between the cleantech communities in Boston and Houston. At least one startup currently housed in Greentown Labs in Somerville has expressed interest in hiring a second team to work out of the Houston facility, Reichert said.
Ultimately, that bridge will be necessary if Greentown Labs, which bills itself as the largest cleantech incubator in North America, is to carry out its stated mission: to create a sustainable world by activating innovation across the U.S.
"There's no way that our country is going to be able to do what it needs to do to address climate change unless the whole country is in it," Reichert said. "We're building a network of entrepreneurs in two locations, and probably eventually elsewhere as well. And doing that in service of addressing climate change."
