In September, Energy Tech Challengers held its first competition in Asia-Pacific. At Energy Tech Summit Asia 2026 in Kuala Lumpur, 94 startups pitched across six tracks to an investor jury, with ABB as Startup Innovation Partner. Six track winners reached the superfinal, and one took the overall title.
The results matter for Europe, too. Two of the winners, Blykalla and Cosysense, are European companies. Belgium’s iSensPro also won the PETRONAS Tech Challenge Special Prize. The rest are tackling challenges Europe knows well, from critical raw materials to building efficiency. Here are the climate tech startups that came out on top.
The winners at a glance
- Overall winner: SiTration, Inc.
- Green Energy Infrastructure: Cosysense
- AI for Energy: Invigilo AI
- Energy for AI: Blykalla
- Climate Hardware X: SiTration, Inc.
- Climate Software X: Reclimate Sdn Bhd
- Climate X – Wild Card: Krosslinker
- PETRONAS Tech Challenge Special Prize: iSensPro
More about Energy Tech Challengers
All finalists of Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
Overall winner: SiTration, Inc.
Europe has spent the past few years trying to secure its supply of critical raw materials. SiTration offers a different route to the same goal: get more out of the mines that already exist.
The MIT spin-out uses silicon-based filtration and electro-extraction to recover metals from mining, refining and recycling streams. Its process needs only electricity, with no added chemicals. The output includes LME-grade copper, precious metals and rare earth concentrates – all from material that would otherwise end up as waste.
SiTration has already proved the technology with BHP. In one trial, it recovered copper at 99.9% purity from residual waste liquids. In August 2026, the partners also started a pilot in Arizona at a historic BHP mine site.
That track record made Brendan Smith’s pitch hard to beat, and SiTration took both the Climate Hardware X title and the overall win.
Brendan Smith of SiTration pitching on stage
Energy for AI: Blykalla
Sweden’s Blykalla brought European nuclear innovation to Kuala Lumpur and won the Energy for AI track.
The company is developing SEALER, a 55 MWe small modular reactor cooled by liquid lead. Lead-cooling is decades old, but it has always had one weakness: it corrodes steel. Building on more than 25 years of research, Blykalla developed a self-healing, aluminium-alloyed steel that solves the problem.
The reactors are compact enough to be made in a factory and safe enough to sit close to industrial users and data centres. Blykalla has applied to build two reactor parks in Sweden, at Norrsundet and Tierp, and is expanding in the US.
Jon Christensen’s line on stage stuck with the audience: “Small enough to be built in a factory, big enough to power data centres.”
Jon Christensen of Blykalla pitching on stage at Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
Green Energy Infrastructure: Cosysense
London-based Cosysense was the other European winner. Its focus is the energy commercial buildings waste on heating and cooling.
Its platform, CosyOS, connects to existing building systems in under a day and then runs them automatically. It adjusts HVAC, chillers, boilers and lighting based on how each piece of equipment behaves and how comfortable people are inside. Cosysense reports verified HVAC savings of 27–38% across its clients.
Customers pay nothing upfront and share the savings instead. The approach is gaining recognition: Cosysense raised £1.5 million in 2025 and won a BCIA 2026 award for technical innovation.
For European building owners facing tighter efficiency rules and higher energy bills, it’s a model worth watching.
Matias Acosta of Cosysense pitching for Green Energy Infrastructure track award at Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
AI for Energy: Invigilo AI
Singapore’s Invigilo AI turns ordinary CCTV into an always-on safety officer for high-risk sites.
Its computer vision detects more than 40 safety risks in real time and sends alerts in under a second. Beyond detection, it also runs random spot checks, follows up on corrective actions and drafts daily safety briefings.
The platform is live on close to 200 sites, with customers including Italy’s Saipem, Hyundai E&C and Lendlease. On one Singapore construction project, incidents dropped by 60% within a year. Invigilo also complies with GDPR, which makes it easier for European operators to adopt.
Vishnu Saran Udayagiri of Invigilo AI pitching for AI for Energy track at Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
Climate Software X: Reclimate Sdn Bhd
Malaysia’s Reclimate turns agricultural waste into biochar, a durable form of carbon removal. Biochar is recognised under the EU’s Carbon Removal Certification Framework, so the model speaks directly to European buyers of removals.
Instead of burning palm oil waste, rice husks or forestry residues, Reclimate heats them without oxygen and returns the biochar to the soil. It handles the full process: building the units with local partners, digital monitoring and verification, and selling the credits.
For buyers, every batch is traceable back to its feedstock, and projects are independently audited and rated. For mills and farmers, there’s no upfront investment and a share of the carbon revenue.
Yovindra Kanezin of Reclimate pitching for Climate Software X track at Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
Climate X – Wild Card: Krosslinker
Aerogel is the most insulating solid we know, but cost has kept it niche. Singapore’s KrossLinker has built a manufacturing platform that makes it affordable.
Its products already include aerogel boards for pharmaceutical cold chains and an aerogel-powered cooling paint for buildings. As heatwaves become more common in Europe as well as Asia, passive cooling like this is likely to matter more.
The Wild Card track rewards climate solutions in unexpected markets, and Gayathri Natarajan’s pitch fit that brief perfectly.
Gayathri Natarajan of Krosslinker pitching for the Climate X Wild Card track at Energy Tech Challengers Asia 2026
PETRONAS Tech Challenge Special Prize: iSensPro
Alongside Energy Tech Challengers, we also collaborated with Petroliam Nasional Berhad (PETRONAS), our Innovation Partner and a leading global energy company committed to delivering responsible and sustainable energy solutions that drive societal progress.
Through its corporate accelerator programme, PETRONAS works with high-potential technology innovators to identify, validate and scale breakthrough solutions for real-world industrial applications. The programme gives startups the opportunity to pilot their technologies in operational environments, accelerate commercial adoption and reach global markets with PETRONAS and its industry partners.
In Kuala Lumpur, eight startups pitched in the PETRONAS Tech Challenge. PETRONAS’ current priorities shaped the brief: technologies that boost industrial energy efficiency and support decarbonisation, especially waste heat recovery, advanced cooling, smart heat tracing and next-generation insulation.
Biggest congratulations go to Belgium’s iSensPro, winners of the PETRONAS Tech Challenge Special Prize – a third European success in Kuala Lumpur. iSensPro monitors corrosion under insulation, which happens when moisture gets trapped beneath the insulation on pipes and tanks. Because it is invisible, it often goes unnoticed until it causes leaks or shutdowns.
The company’s sensors attach to the outside of the cladding and track moisture, coating damage and corrosion in real time, with no need to strip insulation or pause operations. Its CORIA platform turns that data into maintenance decisions, and its references include BASF, ExxonMobil and SABIC.
Yves Desmet of iSensPro receiving the PETRONAS Tech Challenge Special Prize at Energy Tech Summit Asia 2026
Takeaway
Kuala Lumpur showed that strong climate tech travels. A Swedish reactor developer, a London building-tech startup, a Belgian sensor company and four startups from the US and Southeast Asia all won on the same stage. What they share is a clear problem, real customers and technology that is already working in the field.
Meet the next generation in Bilbao
The next chance to see startups like these is Energy Tech Summit Europe 2027, on 7–8 April in Bilbao, Spain. Energy Tech Challengers returns at the summit. Applications will open later this year.
Founders can join with the Founder’s Pass at €699, and code ETS100 takes €100 off. General passes are €1,399 until 30 November.
