FESI will award additional investment dollars to the competition winners.
San Antonio, TX – The Foundation for Energy Security and Innovation (FESI), in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC), successfully hosted the Spring 2025 EPIC Pitch Competition at the 12th annual Energy Thought Summit (ETS) and will provide catalytic funding to the winning companies. FESI’s investment ensured this national-stage competition could take place in person, bridging a critical gap and enabling direct collaboration between the public and private sectors.
“It’s exciting to see FESI hit the ground running, backing programs like the EPIC Pitch Competition that help turn breakthrough ideas into real-world energy solutions for America,” said Anthony Pugliese, DOE’s Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of OTC. “Their involvement shows how FESI can move quickly and amplify the Department’s commercialization efforts. We’re proud to see this kind of early momentum—and it’s just the beginning.”
About the EPIC Program and Pitch Competition
The Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) empowers regional incubators to support the nation’s most promising startups. Six DOE-selected finalists pitched their technologies to a panel of expert reviewers and a live audience in San Antonio. The DOE awarded more than $100,000 in cash prizes to top teams demonstrating exceptional potential for impact and scale.
In line with its mission to foster American leadership in energy innovation, FESI will also invest in each of the top three prize-winning companies to support their continued growth and help transition critical technologies into the market.
Spring 2025 EPIC Pitch Competition Winners
- First Place, $50,000: Infinion Technology (Palo Alto, CA) – AI-powered, high-frequency magnetic sensing for low-cost, real-time grid asset monitoring, enabling a more resilient, reliable grid.
- Nominating Incubator Award, $25,000: LabStart (Denver, CO)
- Second Place, $20,000: Anactisis (Pittsburgh, PA) – Enhancing U.S. energy security by developing polymer-based materials to recover critical minerals from industrial waste streams.
- Third Place, $10,000: Dig Energy (Manchester, NH) – Affordable, compact, fast, and thermally efficient drilling tech enabling geothermal heating and cooling to scale.
The winning startups represent cutting-edge advancements in areas such as grid monitoring, critical mineral recovery, and next-generation geothermal technologies; each contributing to a more secure, resilient, and sustainable energy future. Held on the main stage as part of ETS 2025, the pitch competition brought together leaders from DOE, FESI, industry, and investment communities. The program featured remarks from OTC Director Anthony Pugliese and a celebratory networking session with the winning teams and American-Made program partners.
Read the full DOE press release here: https://www.energy.gov/technologycommercialization/articles/winners-spring-2025-epic-pitch-competit ion-announced-energy
