Norwegian venture capital firm Energy Ventures is branching into the Texas market, backing two Houston-area tech startups and signing on the University of Texas Investment Management Company as an investor.
Four years after opening its Houston office, Energy Ventures’ fourth fund has brought in the firm’s first U.S. investor and raised $350 million, said Jim Sledzik, president of the Houston office. Among other energy innovations, the fund is backing Wireless Seismic, based in Sugar Land, and Produced Water Absorbents, which has offices in Ohio and Houston.
The firm, which launched in Norway in 2002, provides start-up funding for technology innovations for the oil field, investing $5 million to $30 million in each company. Houston is becoming an increasingly important part of its portfolio, Sledzik said.
“Houston is where we see the most deals,” he said. “It’s a natural for our portfolio to be here.”
Energy Ventures’ third fund backed start-up Oxane Materials, co-founded by Rice University professor Andy Barron. The company manufactures a nano-sized ceramic proppant, which is becoming increasingly popular in hydraulic fracturing to prop open cracks and ease the flow of oil and natural gas from highly dense rock formations.
Sledzik says the company is actively involved in the companies it backs, typically investing for about three to five years.
The firm’s staff is full of energy industry veterans, including a geophysicist, chemist, marine engineer and chemical engineer, he said. Sledzik spent 20 years in the oil and gas industry and was Schlumberger’s global account director.
That gives the firm unique and valuable insight into the innovations that they evaluate for funding.
“Because all of us come from the industry, we’ve been around the technology,” he said. “We’re not just about the financials. We have a good handle on what’s a good opportunity and what gets us excited.”
