Eight companies backed by Aberdeen’s TechX programme are heading into Demo Day on 11 June. The technologies on stage map where NZTC sees Scotland’s hardest net zero problems.
Eight early-stage cleantech companies are three weeks away from pitching to investors and industry leaders in Aberdeen, bringing to a close the Net Zero Technology Centre’s (NZTC) eighth TechX Accelerator cohort. Demo Day falls on 11 June at NZTC’s Queens Road offices. What happens there will shape which of these companies secures follow-on funding, which lands its first industrial pilot, and which finds a strategic partner willing to back early-stage deep tech.
The cohort was selected in March from a large field of applicants. Between them, the eight companies received £400,000 in funding, mentoring, and technical support, along with access to NZTC’s network of energy industry partners and investors. The funding is only part of the value. TechX’s model, backed by both the UK and Scottish Governments, is built around de-risking technologies before they reach scale, connecting early-stage companies with the kind of industrial validation that makes later fundraising and customer acquisition materially easier.
The cohort: what they’re building and why it matters
The eight companies cover a wide spread of challenges, and that breadth signals where NZTC sees the remaining hard problems in Scotland’s energy transition.
Floating offshore wind is Scotland’s biggest near-term energy infrastructure bet, and two cohort members address it directly. Xmoor is applying machine learning to floating wind simulation and design optimisation, a software-layer play aimed at reducing the cost and time of getting floating wind projects into the water. ISONIK takes the operational side, with ultrasonic ice-prevention systems designed to keep turbines running in the harsh North Sea conditions that erode both uptime and margins.
Industrial heat decarbonisation is the problem that grid electrification alone cannot solve, and three cohort companies are working on it from different angles. Orchid Solar has developed solar thermal concentrators that deliver high-temperature heat above 500°C without fossil fuels, targeting the industrial processes that represent some of the hardest emissions to cut. StrainWorks addresses the carbon embedded in the components themselves, using rotary forging to produce ultra-lightweight, low-embodied-carbon steel bearings for energy and industrial applications. HexSeed Technology goes further upstream, converting captured CO₂ into lab-grown industrial diamonds for thermal management in advanced electronics, a carbon-capture-and-utilisation play that turns an emissions liability into a high-value material.
Hydrogen and remote power round out the cohort. MetaSenz has developed light-based nanosensor platforms for real-time hydrogen sensing, a safety and monitoring technology whose significance grows directly with the scale of hydrogen deployment. Micro Thermal Energy is targeting off-grid and hard-to-abate locations with modular geothermal baseload systems that deliver clean heat and electricity where grid connection is impractical. Hypanode brings fuel cell technology that the company describes as combining the power density of a jet engine with the efficiency of a battery.
What TechX’s eighth year tells us about the programme itself
TechX is now in its eighth year, making it one of Scotland’s longer-running cleantech accelerators. The track record matters. Previous cohorts have moved from Demo Day into equity rounds and relationships with industry partners including Equinor. The 2023 cohort collectively raised £740,000 in equity during the programme alone. The 2025 cohort produced a £50,000 Climate Impact Prize, awarded by NZTC sponsor ConocoPhillips to Remedium, which is developing ultra-low-cost carbon capture for heavy industry.
The programme’s selection focus is consistent across cohorts: technically credible solutions to problems the energy transition cannot route around. That means keeping turbines running in harsh conditions, decarbonising industrial heat, making hydrogen safe at scale, and making baseload power genuinely clean. TechX is not looking for the most commercially ready company. It is looking for the most technically credible answer to a problem the industry cannot solve without it.
The question Demo Day will answer
The 14-week programme culminates on 11 June. The format is a pitch event at NZTC’s Aberdeen offices, running from 13:00 to 17:00, with an audience of investors and industry leaders. For each company, the pitch is a public validation test: can they articulate the commercial pathway for a technology that is, in most cases, still pre-revenue?
For some cohort members, the immediate prize is a first industrial pilot. For others, it is the introduction to a lead investor willing to back a seed or Series A round. Previous Demo Days have delivered both outcomes for different companies in the same cohort.
The wider question is what this cohort, and TechX’s eighth year more generally, says about the health of Scotland’s cleantech pipeline. Aberdeen is not self-evidently a startup city in the way Edinburgh or Glasgow is. The NZTC model is one answer to that: rather than waiting for a commercial ecosystem to mature organically, the centre acts as a deliberate infrastructure investment, pulling early-stage companies into Aberdeen’s industrial network and giving them the validation they need to compete for capital.
Whether eight companies, £400,000, and 14 weeks is enough to make a material difference to Scotland’s net zero ambitions is a fair question. TechX has never claimed to be the whole answer. What it has done, across eight cohorts, is build a credible track record of moving cleantech companies from concept to customer, and that record is what gives Demo Day on 11 June its weight.
TechX Demo Day 2026 takes place on 11 June at the Net Zero Technology Centre, 20 Queens Road, Aberdeen, from 13:00–17:00.
