Greentown Labs Houston hires former Entergy managing director as first general manager

The climate tech incubator Greentown Labs Houston added a former corporate strategic investor to its leadership team to help member startups commercialize in a tough venture capital environment.

Timmeko Moore Love joined Greentown Labs as its first-ever Houston general manager and senior vice president, according to an Aug. 9 press release. Love will be responsible for business operations, growing the Greentown team, and adding to the incubator’s Houston membership base.

Love most recently served as a managing director at New Orleans-based energy utility Entergy Corp. (NYSE: ETR), where she was the first Black woman to lead a Fortune 500 company’s venture capital program. She previously also held venture capital and accelerator leadership roles at the Mayo Clinic and retail giant Best Buy Co. Inc. (NYSE: BBY), both based in Minnesota.

Somerville, Massachusetts-based Greentown Labs opened its Houston location in April 2021 at 4200 San Jacinto St., a block away from The Ion, an incubator developed by Rice University. Both Greentown Labs and The Ion are part of Rice Management Co.’s planned 16-acre Midtown Innovation District.

Love joins Greentown as venture capital investment has seen a downturn beginning in the second half of 2022 and compounded by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank in 2023.

A Q2 2023 report from Pitchbook found that clean tech sectors such as carbon capture were seeing flattening interest, leading Juliana Garaizar, chief development and investment officer at Greentown Labs Houston, to advise startups to focus on strong pilot tests and diverse financial relationships in uncertain times.

Garaizar also suggested startups look to corporate venture arms to raise funds, and recent research from the Greater Houston Partnership suggests the Bayou City is already benefiting from corporate investment into clean tech. The GHP’s 2023 Houston Facts report showed that while overall capital investment in Houston declined from 2021 to 2022, clean tech saw a bigger proportion of that investment. Houston’s energy transition businesses secured $6.1 billion in financing, a 61% increase compared to the previous year, and corporate funds and strategic mergers and acquisitions made up $4 billion of clean tech investment.

Other sources of investment in the energy transition come from federal funds, such as the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which allotted $370 billion in the form of tax credits and grants for climate technology investment. However, Houston-area startups, including some Greentown members, raised questions about how easy it was for companies to access the money after it was distributed. 

In the second quarter of 2023, Greentown Labs added 17 new startups, with seven based in Houston. The companies specialize in technologies ranging from agriculture and carbon footprint reduction to manufacturing.

Love’s hiring follows Greentown Labs CEO Emily Reichert stepping down in 2022 after over a decade in the role. CFO Kevin Taylor took over interim CEO responsibilities after her departure, but Jason Hanna is the current interim CEO as of June, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Greentown Labs selected the first cohort of its new incubator program, Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders, or ACCEL, in February. Two Houston-based startups, DrinKicks and Frakktal, were included in the cohort. ACCEL is a collaboration between Greentown Labs and Boston-based nonprofit Browning the Green Space.