Texas Innovates Launches Hydrogen Incubator Program – CHILI

The Carbon and Hydrogen Innovation & Learning Incubator (CHILI) is a program led by Texas Innovates. The mission is to align and drive innovation to the HyVelocity program and other large-scale decarbonization efforts.

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Transitions (OTT), EPIC Round 3 is a $4 million competitive funding program for the nation’s most innovative incubators supporting energy startups.

Texas Innovates realized the challenges with cultivating new technology.  In addition, startups require more than capital to launch, grow, and scale their innovations. Incubators provide the mentorship, technology validation, business development, connections to manufacturers, and other resources, that are critical to a startup’s success.

Through our continued efforts, team of subject matter experts and through this funding by the DOE, Texas Innovates will focus on small scale and distributed solutions to address a capital gap in supporting these startups and late stage research and development.  Our team will cultivate innovation by providing the tools needed to focus on their new technology, while providing funding and long-term support for commercial scale towards sustainable solutions.

Together with OTT, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and Climate Impact Capital, Texas Innovates will focus on science, education, and fostering a “hard-tech” innovation ecosystem centered in the greater Houston and Gulf Coast region of Texas.