Imran Kizilbash & Abhinav Jain from Titanium Innovation Investments

Imran Kizilbash & Abhinav Jain from Titanium Innovation Investments

Author: collide. March 3, 2026 Duration: 1:10:52

The industrial world is still running on manual processes and siloed data while our phones got smarter ten times over, and that gap is exactly where Titanium Innovation Investments is placing its bets. Abhinav Jain and Imran Kizilbash, co-founders and managing partners at Titanium Innovation Investments, break down what it actually takes to sell tech into enterprises that move slow by design, why product market fit is something you can lose just as fast as you find it, and how they evaluate founding teams when the revenue is basically zero. Plus some real talk on Houston's startup ecosystem and whether the city has the deal flow to back up the ambition.

Click here to watch a video of this episode.

Join the conversation shaping the future of energy.
Collide is the community where oil & gas professionals connect, share insights, and solve real-world problems together. No noise. No fluff. Just the discussions that move our industry forward.
Apply today at collide.io


Click here to view the episode transcript.

0:00 Introduction
1:00 Titanium Innovation Investments thesis and origin story
4:17 Why industrial tech adoption lags behind consumer tech
7:01 Data as an asset in M&A and enterprise transactions
10:23 Imran and Abhinav's career journeys from field to finance
15:04 What product market fit actually looks like at seed stage
19:24 Unit economics and business models in hard tech vs software
29:56 Cutting through the AI hype in industrial applications
34:23 Data ownership, legal challenges, and enterprise selling
40:16 Change management and why adoption cycles are longer
43:21 Portfolio construction and sector diversification
50:13 Houston's startup ecosystem and deal sourcing nationally
1:04:18 Advice for founders on fundraising and building trust

https://twitter.com/collide_ai

https://www.tiktok.com/@collide.io

https://www.facebook.com/collide.io

https://www.instagram.com/collide.io

https://www.youtube.com/@collide_io

https://bsky.app/profile/collide-ai.bsky.social

https://www.linkedin.com/company/collideai


They say everything's bigger in Texas, including the challenges and opportunities presented by climate change. That's precisely why Houston has become a surprising epicenter for the global energy transition. In H-Town, the fourth largest city in the United States, a new wave of entrepreneurs is converging, partnering with established industry titans to forge the technologies that will slash emissions and power a low-carbon future. This is the landscape explored in Energytech Startups, a podcast from collide. that goes straight to the source. Hosts Nada Ahmed and Jason Ethier sit down with the very people driving this change-the founders, investors, and innovators who are building companies at the intersection of energy and technology. Each conversation digs into the real work: the engineering breakthroughs, the complex business models, and the hard-won lessons from the front lines of a sector undergoing massive transformation. It’s a direct line to the strategies and stories shaping the future of energy, making this podcast an essential listen for anyone curious about the business and investment dynamics behind building a sustainable world. You’ll hear frank discussions about funding, scaling, and the practical realities of bringing a transformative idea to market, all set against the backdrop of a city historically known for oil and gas now betting big on its own reinvention.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 87

Energytech Startups
Podcast Episodes
Sandeep Roy from Planckton Data [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 55:09
AI and sustainability, two buzzwords that actually make a lot of sense together, especially when you’ve got sharp minds like Robin Goswami and Sandeep Roy putting them to work. These guys built Planckton Data to crack on…
Jason & Nada from Energy Tech Nexus [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:07
Houston isn’t just the oil and gas capital, it’s shaping up to be the energy innovation hub of the future, and Nada Ahmed and Jason Ethier are right in the middle of it. As the brains behind EnergyTechNexus, they’re buil…
Zimri T. Hinshaw from Rheom Materials [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:15
Plastic doesn’t have to be the villain of the story anymore, Rheom Materials is flipping the script. From brewing kombucha to brewing up a whole new way of thinking about sustainable plastics, they’re proving that bio-ba…
Stephen Ojji from Nocopycats & VisionTech [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:08
Workplace safety just got a serious upgrade thanks to some cutting-edge AI tech that turns your regular ol’ CCTV cameras into safety superheroes. We’re talking about a system that spots hazards, flags unsafe behavior (wi…
Scott & Jim from Latham & Watkins [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:05:34
Energy tech startups face a unique maze of legal pitfalls, and we’re breaking it all down with tips and strategies that could save your company. From dodging toxic investment terms like full ratchets to navigating fundin…
WindEverest Corporation [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:01
Ever thought about how to make EV charging smarter and greener? Wind Everest is turning wind energy into a game-changer for electric vehicles, and Robert Rolnik is at the helm of it all. Picture an app that works like a…
Alchemy Industrial [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:07:10
When it comes to bringing manufacturing back to the US, reshoring isn’t just a buzzword, it’s a game plan, and Mush Khan from Alchemy Industrial is in the thick of it. From building game-changing energy storage systems t…
Amperon [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:00:37
Sean Kelly, CEO of Amperon, joins this episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast to share how his company is transforming energy forecasting through AI-driven solutions tailored to every electron on the grid. He delves…
NetBenefit Software [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:49
Imagine slashing admin time by 80% while tackling the energy transition, sounds like a dream, right? That’s the reality with NetBenefits Software, where AI is shaking up how energy companies manage stakeholder relationsh…
Cavern Energy [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 59:33
William shares his journey from the oil and gas industry to developing cutting-edge underground energy storage solutions. He explains how salt dome caverns can be used for long-duration energy storage, helping to support…