Founded by Drs. Rodney and Shanterria Sampson in 2013, Opportunity Hub serves as a support program for high-growth entrepreneurship and company-building for new energy and climate technology startups — all while ensuring racial equity in the future’s workforce.
Now, through a partnership with GNO, Inc., OHUB is building a diverse, inclusive and equitable new energy and climate technology ecosystem in New Orleans and South Louisiana. Additionally, OHUB x NOLA’s New Energy Technology Incubator is helping entrepreneurs start and grow their companies.
OHUB, which is composed of companies, federal agencies and economic development organizations, works to provide budding companies with exposure to experts, knowledge and skills; upwardly mobile career pathways; company-building resources; and early-stage capital and investment opportunities. In addition to GNO, Inc., other partners include the United States Economic Development Administration and the United States Treasury Department. These federal agencies and economic development organizations are a source of funding for OHUB x NOLA’s New Energy Technology Incubator and OHUB’s Capital Formation Initiatives.
Problems & Solutions
According to Salem Habte, Energy Inclusion Associate at GNO, Inc., in the United States, only one1 percent of venture-backed founders are Black and 1.8 percent are Latino. “This statistic is rooted in years of systemic denial of wealth to communities of color,” Habte said. “Louisiana has seen more oil and gas job loss than any state, with nearly 22,000 positions lost from 2001-2020.”
Habte said that, in the energy industry, while jobs are well-paying, only 29 percent are held by minorities, compared to over 50 percent in lower-wage hospitality jobs. This disparity is reflected in average wages, which are $62,000 for whites and $33,000 for African Americans (ACS 5-year estimates). Moreover, air and soil pollution disproportionately affect populations living in fence-line communities close to industry, which are predominantly Black.
As a result of these figures, GNO, Inc., and OHUB are working to support technologies that create cleaner energy and reduce carbon emissions—all while putting the communities most affected by the negative aspects of the energy industry in the driver’s seat of the energy transition.
“We will narrow the racial wealth gap by ensuring that our founders have the startup support and capital access to grow and scale their high-growth startups,” said Rodney Sampson, Executive Chairman and CEO of OHUB. “Wealth is assets minus liabilities and is generated in entrepreneurship through company profits, dividends, acquisitions or initial public offerings.”
Sampson believes that once these founders generate new multi-generational wealth with no reliance on pre-existing multi-generational wealth via OHUB, they are more inclined to invest in other founders that are aiming to do the same thing. Given time, this builds an ecosystem of wealth, which eventually becomes community wealth.
OHUB is providing, in Rodney’s words, “contextual and culturally relevant” entrepreneurial support to founders at the pre-seed or seed-stage. “The OHUB team is extremely good at identifying products and technologies with serious potential,” Habte said. “They then fill the gaps and help those founders with the company-building aspect: the business acumen; access to early collaborators; and capital. This allows founders who encounter obstacles in growing their businesses to achieve high growth, using the many resources here in Louisiana.”
Eco-Builders
A main component of OHUB is an ecosystem of builders (local programs and funds centered around founders of color) working to create economic growth. For example, Rodney said that The New Orleans Startup Fund — a nonprofit evergreen seed fund for early-stage businesses — has the largest portfolio of women founders and founders of color in the state.
Another program, IDEAfuel, is a venture accelerator within the Idea Village. “The Idea Village has been a convener for most entrepreneurial activity in [New Orleans] and has served thousands of entrepreneurs at various stages,” Habte said. “Their graduates have gone on to secure millions of dollars in funding and acquisition. IDEAfuel supports select startups founded by BIPOC founders with non-dilutive capital and one-on-one mentorship.”
On the climate side, Habte said that Finance New Orleans and Elemental Excelerator collaborated to create a $2 million fund and launched the NOLA Affordable and Resilient Homes Challenge to deploy climate technologies in new and retrofitted single-family homes. “A few of the venture capitalists based in Louisiana have or are looking to invest in climate tech, and only more will join them as this industry takes the forefront in the next few years,” he said.
Other resources and policies also are helping entrepreneurs to start and scale high-growth companies as part of this ecosystem. “The State Small Business Credit Initiative is expected to allocate over $90 million in capital to organizations and venture funds in the state, providing more funding sources for companies in 2024,” Habte said. “When allocated, some of this funding will be invested in select startups in the New Energy Technology Incubator.”
OHUB x NOLA’s Energy Technology Incubator
OHUB has partnered with GNO, Inc., as part of H2theFuture, to launch OHUB x NOLA’s New Energy Technology Incubator. An initiative that GNO, Inc., leads in partnership with 25 organizations across South Louisiana, H2theFuture applied for the Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge with a vision for the widespread use of green hydrogen to decarbonize South Louisiana’s industrial corridor.
“H2theFuture won the award for $50 million, met by Louisiana Economic Development by almost $24.5 million,” Habte said. “We [are using] this money now to lead our clean energy transition by developing business, strengthening our universities and research, and training our workforce.”
In the context of NETI and H2theFuture, primary ecosystem-builders include GNO, Inc., which serves as the coalition lead, convener and funder; The Beach at UNO, which is building a state-of-the-art co-working space; and Dillard University, which is creating a minor in Climate Tech Entrepreneurship and hosting events, bootcamps and demo days. Habte’s team is helping founders graduating from NETI to integrate into Louisiana’s entrepreneurial ecosystem by connecting them to potential customers, partnering on grants and more.
Through NETI, founders have access to masterclasses and networking events, climate technology bootcamps, demo days and OHUB’s ecosystem app.
“We host monthly events featuring subject-matter experts, such as our founders and H2theFuture partners; quarterly climate technology bootcamps for up to 35 founders; and demo days where we give founders who complete the bootcamp the opportunity to pitch for a $50,000 investment,” Rodney said.
NETI’s first cohort, consisting of 48 startups, began in Q4 2023 and lasted for 12 weeks. During the process, founders learned how to develop their business model, bring their product to market, acquire customers and raise venture capital. OHUB invested $275,000 in five climate technology startups (Tikal Industries, Oga Street Tech, Maiven Energy, ECGO and Gro Enterprises). The second cohort, currently underway with 41 startups, includes an increased focus on doing business in Louisiana. Additional cohorts and demo days will take place every quarter until the end of 2026.
In addition to NETI, GNO, Inc., has a range of offerings aimed at advancing innovation and education in the 10-parish region.
“We coordinate resources and facilitate connections using our ecosystem tool, StartupNOLA, and we host monthly ecosystem-building events,” Habte said. “Through H2theFuture, we’ve built testbeds at our leading universities to boost their research and development capacities, which, when completed, will be accessible to technologists outside of the universities, and we have launched classes in new energy at four HBCUs, baking in entrepreneurial concepts.”
In fact, Rodney said the courses at Dillard University were developed in partnership with OHUB to incorporate the teachings from their masterclasses into the curriculum. “All of these work streams will aid the efforts of OHUB at an ecosystem level,” he said.
Looking To the Future
For Habte, the Greater New Orleans Region is bursting with talent and innovation. “We have unique market conditions and challenges in the Gulf to build nationally competitive solutions around building wealth,” he said. “Louisiana can boost our innovation activity with strategic focus in equipping our universities, minority-serving institutions and HBCUs into the language of entrepreneurship, and building local capital and programs to grow interconnectivity between local entrepreneurs and the resources available around them.”
Additionally, Habte cites the 2023 Greater New Orleans Startup Report, compiled yearly by the Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Tulane University’s A. B. Freeman School of Business. “[The report] found that regional startups are attracting funding and creating more jobs despite inflation,” he said. “They state that the regional gender gap in access to angel investment has shrunk from 13 percent in 2022 to 1 percent in 2023, and the gap for BIPOC founders dropped from 17 percent to 3 percent over the same period. This is great news for our region.”
Joel Holton, founder and CEO of Gro Enterprises, began working with OHUB as part of NETI’s first cohort, and he continues to work with OHUB via programming offered through the Climate Tech Bootcamp. Through his social enterprise, Holton is developing healthy and sustainable housing using industrial hemp-based building components (such as flooring materials and insulation) in underserved communities in the Greater New Orleans area.
“The OHUB team does an excellent job in helping underrepresented founders navigate the tech space from its leadership team headed by Rodney and Shanterria Sampson, Leroy Brown, Michelle Jackson and Darrell Frater,” Holton said. “OHUB specifically coached the company in several growth metrics including our storytelling, product market fit and new customer acquisitions.”
OHUB invested $50,000 in Gro Enterprises as part of the $275,000 total awarded to the five climate technology startups. The funds will be used to help execute the company’s next proof-of-concept micro home build in partnership with two local nonprofits, Phoenix Project NOLA and The First 72+. Gro Enterprises also is using the funding to build a new workshop that will help the company increase production and store materials.
Visit opportunityhub.typeform.com/to/NUulbRY7 to apply for the next NETI cohort.
