Following a competitive selection process that spotlighted ten of some of the world's most promising early-stage climate tech companies, EarthX announced Austin-based Zero Electric the winner of the prestigious 2025 EarthX Climate Tech Prize, awarded during the 9th annual E-Capital Summit at Earthx2025. This year, EarthX received more than 230 applications from sustainability-focused innovators from throughout the world tackling opportunities across a diverse set of industry sectors.
Zero Electric is reimagining how Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) connect to and participate in the grid. Co-Founders Jimi Adegbohun (CEO) and Felix Ogbeide (COO) created a grid-aware platform that generates dynamic, spatiotemporal hosting capacity maps and real-time flexibility insights, enabling faster interconnections, better DER monetization and intelligent grid operations. Zero Electric was awarded a $15,000 non-dilutive cash prize and had the opportunity to pitch before leading global investment, industry, and innovation leaders at the 9th annual E-Capital Summit.
Also at Earthx2025, Ceretune was chosen as the winner of the second annual Ocean Exchange pitch competition. Ceretune, founded by Reid Barnett, uses biomass growth data and water chemistry to guide plant selection, system placement, and measure impact. Their biodegradable, self-buoyant fabric supports seed-based plant growth on water, converting excess ocean phosphorus and nitrogen into biomass to combat nutrient pollution. As the winner of the 2025 pitch competition, Ceretune received a $25,000 grant.
"We're proud to celebrate these visionary founders whose solutions reflect the cutting-edge promise of clean technology tackling both business and environmental challenges," said Vikram Agrawal, Senior Director of EarthxCapital, who helps EarthX curate the event. "At EarthX, we believe breakthrough innovation and market-based solutions are essential to accelerating a more sustainable future and are proud to have hosted more than 100 innovators in Texas."
The 2025 EarthX Climate Tech Prize, powered by Climate Solutions Prize in Montreal, is awarded annually to early-stage ventures with less than $250,000 in annual revenue and under $500,000 in dilutive funding. It is designed to spotlight early-stage ventures that combine high-impact environmental potential with scalable, investable business models. The awards are part of EarthX's broader mission to convene capital, innovators, and policymakers to drive environmental solutions through actionable collaboration.
This year's semi-finalists pitched their technologies during live sessions at the 2025 E-Capital Summit. For the first time since the award's inception, the E-Capital Summit Investment Forum audience voted live to select which four semi-finalists (out of ten) would go on to compete in the EarthX Climate Tech Prize Finals. The four companies pitched in the finals on the public EarthX TV Stage, and the winner was selected by a panel of four judges including:
CS Freeland, Executive Director, Texas Venture Alliance
Galith Levy, CEO, Climate Solutions Prize
Glenn Hamer, President & CEO, Texas Association of Business
Mike Ulica, Former President, National Geographic Society
The Ocean Exchange pitch competition, now in its second year at EarthX, is an extension of the partnership between two organizations, who believe that the best strategy for protecting a healthy global ecosystem is to adopt innovative solutions that drive the sustainable blue economy.
