Creating more affordable, reliable and clean energy solutions through partnership

How Chevron Technology Ventures and Creative Destruction Lab - Rockies are working together to support innovative energy solutions

All CDL-Rockies stakeholders come together with the same goal in mind: to support deep science- and technology-based ventures that have the potential to disrupt current systems and provide highly scalable solutions to industry challenges.?

One of these stakeholders is CDL-Rockies’ corporate partners. Partners ensure CDL-Rockies can provide programming at no cost and offer valuable industry insights and opportunities to ventures.

Chevron Technology Ventures (CTV), the venture capital arm of Chevron, joined CDL-Rockies in 2023 as an Energy stream partner.?

CTV was launched in 1999, with the goal of engaging startups with technologies and business solutions that could enable Chevron to operate more efficiently, lower carbon intensity and launch viable new businesses.

“At CTV, we believe that energy needs to be affordable, reliable and cleaner. You don't achieve those triple goals without technology and innovation,” says Kemal Anbarci , General Manager, Venture Capital, CTV.???

Finding technology and innovation is one of the main reasons Anbarci believes the partnership between CDL-Rockies and CTV is crucial.?

“Our scope is to be the headlights. We have to be able to see what's coming ahead as well as around the corner to understand the startup ecosystem and help the ecosystem grow. Being part of the CDL community allows us to do that,” he says. “We not only learn from the companies about what's coming up, but we also learn from other CDL partners, CDL staff and CDL mentors.”

Anbarci says finding founders he and his team are interested in is a bonus of being part of CDL.?

“CDL pulls in founders who have in-depth knowledge about the problems that they are bringing solutions to, which is one advantage inherently at CDL-Rockies,” he says.?

CTV also seeks founders who have “optimism and drive for a solution” and those who do their due diligence.?

“I like it when ventures talk to people that invested with us and that we’ve invested in,” says Anbarci.

Along with an investment portfolio, CTV also supports Chevron Studio, which aims to accelerate the commercialization of lower-carbon technologies. The program is in partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and supports the development of technologies in carbon utilization, energy storage systems, hydrogen and renewable energy and solutions for a circular economy.?

CTV’s Catalyst program is another tool CTV has to help early-stage companies reach their first institutional financing round. This is a nondilutive, milestone-based program that provides funding to the startup as it reaches each mutually agreed upon milestone in its journey.

The Chevron Studio, CTV Catalyst and CDL programs complement one another and incentivize ventures to reach targeted goals within specific time frames.?

CDL alumni company INGU knows the benefits of these programs well, as it was part of the inaugural program years for both CTV Catalyst and CDL concurrently in 2017, prior to the partnership between CTV and CDL-Rockies.?

“They’re very compatible programs, like two sides of a coin. Both are geared towards bringing deep tech to the market, which is where we were then,” says John van Pol , CEO and Founder, INGU.?

INGU’s Pipers? technology is based on miniaturized inline sensors that inspect pipelines for leaks, deposits, and metal loss to mitigate safety and performance issues and optimize pipeline integrity programs. Their cost-effective solution eliminates the need for operational downtime during inspection and associated heavy equipment and labour typically associated with in-line inspection.

van Pol says his team experienced rapid results from both programs. At Session 1 of CDL-Rockies, the team set an objective centered around closing a raise. Within a month, they achieved this goal, and closed their first $1 million round.?

As part of the CTV Catalyst program, Chevron recommended validation tests of INGU’s technology at the Houston-based PRCI facility, eventually leading to the technology’s move from the lab into the field with Chevron and its pipelines.

“CDL-Rockies focused on how to bring our tech to market and get customers, whereas CTV’s Catalyst Program focused on fine-tuning the product-market fit, both for us and them. They were the perfect combo,” van Pol says.?

INGU is one of many ventures that have worked with both CDL-Rockies and CTV since 2017, and both organizations hope to continue to grow the number of ventures they support together.?

“Prior to this partnership, we’d heard a lot about CDL from our co-investor network. We also saw that many companies that fit for us were also related to CDL. We knew we had to be part of it,” says Anbarci.?

To learn more about CDL-Rockies and its partnerships, please visit our website.