Ahead of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week, we’re continuing our conversations with the people shaping Houston’s energy startup ecosystem: the founders, mentors, and investors behind both its formal programming and the informal moments where much of the real work happens. This time it’s Kathy Anderson, CEO of Brint Tech, a sensing and analytics company tackling hydrogen sensing, and a current Activate Houston fellow. What follows is a founder’s-eye view of what a single week in Houston can compress into days, why the city’s infrastructure matters as much as its talent, and what she thinks Houston’s real bet on the future of energy should be.

Brint Tech grew out of research at Colorado State University, so then why are you building the company in Houston?

Houston is key to our business on all of the big factors: our customers, channel partners, future suppliers, our pipeline for talent. It truly is the DNA of our company, the place to be in the world. There is so much experience here with hydrocarbons, moving molecules, moving energy, getting it where it needs to go. Hydrogen is already used in a big way in the Gulf area, and we’re excited to be part of that. There are highly trained, highly skilled people here who’ve been working with these things for a long time. And that’s what we need for the future of energy.

Though it’s also more than that. I try to do at least one fun thing to explore the city on every business trip. One evening I stepped off the plane and went straight to a venue to hear live music, and of course waiting in line for the food truck, there was somebody who works at an EPC. And so we got to talk shop, just waiting there, me with my suitcase. That’s the density of this place.

As you mentioned density earlier, how is Brint Tech plugged into the ecosystem here?

We are proud to be a Chevron Studio company, part of Cohort Four, which we joined in 2024, and a graduate of the Rose Rock Bridge program. This year, I am starting as an Activate Houston fellow,I am looking forward to that.

I sometimes go into the weeds when people ask me how all this actually helps us. But it comes down to this: how is our job made easier, and how is innovation enabled, just by being here? 

• On the micro level, it’s the one-to-one interactions, and those have led me to so many productive places. 
• On the macro level, it’s the corporate relationships, which take longer, you have to develop trust, you have to understand your customer’s problems before they’ll let you in the room.

Being an Activate fellow, which is an Ion District Initiative, overall how has Ion and RICE Alliance facilitated conversations and connections? 

Ion is truly a lightning rod, a place that’s both physical and conceptual, where people know they can go to find innovation happening. Houston already had the richness: the people, the talent, the one-on-one connection, the customer proximity, the university resources. What Ion does is give all of that somewhere to converge. I appreciate the kind of founders and ventures that get built and attracted here. It’s a high caliber of people, very serious, lots of experienced entrepreneurs. And the Activate program specifically is going to yield huge dividends for us.

You said the founders and ventures here are high caliber. Is the capital keeping up with that?

I view holistically, one needs to properly capitalize the venture, with a couple different forms, from non-dilutive sources to dilutive sources. We’re coming out of a tough stretch for venture deals and financial markets, and that readjustment is going to mean where higher quality deals get funded first. But there needs to be enough dynamism and financial resources flowing at every stage, pre-seed through Series C. We don’t want generations of companies getting stuck at those points because of macroeconomic factors and having really great potential companies just dying on the vine. Building a company means you’re at the whim of these big macro forces, and you have to address that.

What do you think should define the next generation of energy and climate innovation?

I like this, it’s basically asking me to pull out a crystal ball. I would say having an open mind about energy is the biggest thing we could do, thinking about energy as energy abundance, and how Houston can align resources and infrastructure to have a big stake in that. There’s money to be made in how things are changing and where things are going. The future of energy is more abundant, more resilient, more decentralized, more secure. 

Zooming in on HECSW, what do you hope comes out of the week this year? 

Change happens at the speed of trust. Bringing people together to break bread, to share a drink, to convene for these events in density, yields dividends the whole year round. 

Last year I was impressed at the EVD and the Energy Tech Venture Forum, the people in the room showing up to have those conversations about building things and getting things done. People around the country, around the world, know they can plan a trip to Houston during this week and get real value out of it. For us specifically, it’s a chance to connect with the wider Chevron Studio community, entrepreneurs and company leaders who are all over the map the rest of the year but come together for that one week. It was hugely valuable last year. I expect the same this year.

Bio: Kathy Anderson is CEO of Brint Tech, a hydrogen sensing and analytics company with roots in Colorado State University research. Brint Tech is a Chevron Studio portfolio company (Cohort 4, 2024) and a graduate of Rice Alliance’s accelerator programming. Anderson is a current Activate Houston fellow.

Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week runs September 14–18, 2026, bringing together energy and climate startups, investors, and industry leaders from across the region and beyond. Stay tuned on Instagram and Linkedin for event updates.