How Start-Up Accelerators Can Drive Climate Action

Scaling Up Innovation to Drive Down Emissions

Find out more about the briefings in this series below:

Green Hydrogen

Direct Air Capture

Building Out Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure

Offshore Wind Energy

How Start-Up Accelerators Can Drive Climate Action

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) invites you to view a briefing on how startup accelerators can transform innovative ideas into deployable, scalable climate change solutions. Ramping up green hydrogen, direct air capture, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and offshore wind energy can help mitigate climate change, as explored during EESI’s briefing series, Scaling Up Innovation to Drive Down Emissions. But how do we quickly and efficiently scale up these and other innovative climate solutions? 

During this briefing, panelists discussed how accelerators help commercialize early-stage technologies that have the potential to transform the fight against climate change, and steps Congress can take to bolster U.S. private sector momentum to deploy cutting-edge climate solutions in the United States.

This briefing is a bonus session to EESI’s briefing series, Scaling Up Innovation to Drive Down Emissions, that ran through June and focused on the role of innovative technologies and emerging energy sources in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The four-part briefing series covered green hydrogen, direct air capture, electric vehicle charging infrastructure build-out, and offshore wind energy. 

This series ran in parallel with another briefing series, Living with Climate Change, covering polar vortices, sea level rise, wildfires, and extreme heat. Register for the bonus session on integrating equity into emergency management here.

 

Highlights

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Researchers know their technology best and understand its surrounding ecosystem, so they are uniquely suited for commercializing it. The federal government supports innovation and entrepreneurship through investments made by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE). One example of a new early-stage innovation program is NSF’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate. NSF’s Innovation Corps provides opportunities for scientists to learn about business plans and market research. Existing federal programs that support small businesses, such as the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grant programs, require continued Congressional funding.

 

Andrew Chang, Managing Director, Activate New York

• Activate is a two-year entrepreneurial fellowship focused on eight industries that address global challenges.
• The fellowship provides time and funding for researchers to develop their technologies, a network of experts, and world-class tools for scientists (such as research labs and entrepreneurial education).
• Since 2015, 142 Activate fellows have created 106 science-based companies and cumulatively raised $860 million in follow-up financing.
• Examples of companies started by Activate fellows include:
  • Resonant Link, a wireless charging company whose product is three times more efficient and eight times cheaper than traditional wireless charging mechanisms. The technology currently supports medical devices, but it can be scaled up to support electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
  • Antora Energy, which developed a zero-carbon heat and power system that works by storing excess wind and solar energy as thermal storage during high energy production times and reconverting it to energy when it is needed. This technology can help decarbonize heavy industries.
  • Takachar, which built a platform to take waste biomass and convert it to fertilizer and other high-value end-use products. Takachar’s technology can also be used to create additives for concrete to reduce its carbon intensity, to create sustainable plastics, and to replace coal in coal-fired power plants.
• Activate’s three main priorities are addressing climate change; growing the U.S. innovation ecosystem; and supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the innovation space.
• The role of government includes early investments like those made by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Energy (DOE).
• The federal government is investing in new early-stage innovation programs such as NSF’s Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships Directorate.
• Existing programs that support small businesses, such as the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grant programs, require continued Congressional funding.

 

Garrett Boudinot, Fellow, Activate; Co-Founder, Vycarb (formerly known as N3GATIVE CO.)

• NSF’s Innovation Corps provides an opportunity for scientists to learn about business plans and market research.
• Activate helps scientists scale up climate solutions by facilitating the transition from research and academia to business.
• Activate also provides training, guidance, mentorship, and entrepreneurship advice through both formal and informal training.
• The guidance includes fundraising for research and development, establishing strategic partnerships, and developing business models.
• The Activate New York cohort is comprised of carbon dioxide removal-focused startups.
• Activate’s support is especially important since it guides many entrepreneurs that are entering nascent markets.

 

Q&A

 

Q: Why are university researchers uniquely suited to participate in a fellowship program like Activate, and what makes the Activate Fellowship uniquely suited to help company founders overcome barriers to commercialization that are frequently encountered by university researchers?

Chang:

• Our goal in this fellowship program is to empower technical scientists and turn them into entrepreneurs, and our results have shown that this can be done.
• On the research front, Activate wants to help researchers who are experts in their respective fields identify the best pathways to express that technology to the world.

Boudinot:

• Researchers know their technology best and understand its surrounding ecosystem, so they are uniquely suited for entrepreneurship.
• Activate’s former fellows and successful results have empowered me to make commercialization happen.

 

Q: What partnerships and collaborations have come about as a result of Activate’s fellowship program and how have these spurred further innovation to advance climate solutions?

Boudinot:

• Within a week of Activate’s initial orientation, I received over a dozen emails from potential partners, investors, government agencies, and other interested parties.

Chang:

• Takachar, one of the companies in Activate’s portfolio, explored new markets through the Activate Fellowship program, which led to a partnership with the California Department of Forestry. They have also developed a partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric.
• Antora Energy came in as two separate companies with synergies in their technologies and values. They have since merged, raised over $70 million, and are working on their first pilot plant.

 

Q: What is the potential ceiling for clean technologies? How can the United States enable more entrepreneurs and organizations like Activate bring these technologies to scale?

Chang:

• I do not think there is a limit to the decarbonization technology space.
• There are barriers on the policy side, but city and state leadership have encouraged the growth and relocation of climate companies to New York.
• Around $50 billion per year goes into basic science research, but only a fraction of that goes into the commercialization piece.

Boudinot:

• Being in a nascent field can be difficult, but there is a lot of funding entering the climate technology industry.
• State legislation in New York has provided many top-down incentives; for example, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority is a partner with Activate New York.
• At the federal level, DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture both help guide how companies are thinking about the carbon dioxide removal market.
• For the market overall, top-down policies related to carbon dioxide removal will help accelerate an industry that currently feels like the Wild West.

 

Q: How does Activate measure the success of its fellows, and, Garrett, how do you measure your own success?

Chang:

• At the highest level, Activate looks for scalable technologies with a high carbon dioxide removal potential. We also look at financing, jobs created, and how the industry is moving as a whole.
• In the shorter term, Activate looks at how each individual fellow and entrepreneur defines success. Activate can then figure out a path to help them achieve those goals.

Boudinot:

• Emissions reductions and climate impact are how I would define success.
• There is also substantial opportunity for green jobs creation, which can pair climate benefits with societal ones.

 

Q: What is your 10-year vision for Activate and for your technology?

Chang:

• Activate’s North Star is supporting and recruiting fellows.
• Activate’s goal in the next five years is to support 100 fellows per year and create cohorts that have a diversity of technologies, geographies, genders, races, ethnicities, and cultures.
• The aim is to help the world decarbonize and empower Activate fellows to become pillars of decarbonization.

Boudinot:

• In 10 years, seeing my technology being a critical component of carbon dioxide removal projects around the world would be a major success.
• There are direct employees that my company can hire, but there are also broader economic impacts that a sector like carbon dioxide removal can provide across multiple industries; I hope to see my company playing a role in empowering a full ecosystem of carbon dioxide removal.

 

Compiled by Abi Shiva and edited for clarity and length. This is not a transcript.