Program recognizes accelerators, incubators and university initiatives supporting clean-energy innovation
The Wells
Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), funded by Wells Fargo
Foundation and co-administered by the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, today announced more than $1 million in support of eight
projects and 19 organizations to address gaps in clean-energy technology
development and commercialization.
The IN2 Channel Partner Awards Program is designed to foster
the development of a robust cleantech ecosystem by funding innovative
accelerators, incubators, and universities, and promoting a
collaborative network of knowledge sharing.
“The Channel Partner Awards Program supports IN2’s ultimate
goal of accelerating the development and deployment of clean
technologies by encouraging a strong, multi-stakeholder ecosystem that
will collectively drive innovation and sustainability,” said Mary
Wenzel, head of Environmental Affairs and Sustainability at Wells Fargo
& Co. (NYSE: WFC). “Each of the IN2 Channel Partner Award
recipients has displayed a talent for innovation and disruption, and a
commitment to clean technology.”
IN
2
Channel Partner Awards recipients
The
California Institute of Technology
(Pasadena, Calif.) partnered
with
Clean
Energy Trust
(Chicago) to
establish the Rocket Fund Mid-West, an interstate partnership bringing
together sustainability-focused accelerators, utilities and universities
in a community consortium to help guide vulnerable Very Early Stage
ventures through critical early stages. Pioneered in California, the
Rocket Fund Mid-West will offer a solution for one of the most
intractable problems preventing cleantech innovations from reaching the
marketplace – the lack of funding and necessary commercial partners for
building, demonstrating and validating “pre-products” in the real world.
Carnegie
Mellon University
(Pittsburgh) partnered with
Northwestern
University
(Evanston, Ill.) to launch a new Center for
Cleantech Entrepreneurial Excellence. The goal of the center is to
better understand how cleantech/energy innovation and entrepreneurship
differ from other technology sectors. At a regional level, the center
will examine key success factors in early-stage company development and
how societal outcomes can be enhanced as a result.
Cleantech
Group
(San Francisco) to leverage its annual Cleantech
Forum to capture key discussion points and identify themes to help
further inform the direction of the IN2 program as it
considers expanding into the food-systems space.
Activation
Energy
(San Francisco) in support of the
Cyclotron
Road
(Berkeley, Calif.) program to develop a
network leveraging Artificial Intelligence to identify a comprehensive
list of strategic partners for emerging clean energy technologies to
disrupt the current partnering and investment model for bringing new
technologies to market, which relies heavily on human networking.
Working in partnership with Moxley Holdings and Rho AI, their model will
identify future partners based on current investments, partnering trends
and natural language analysis of public statements.
Innosphere
(Fort Collins, Colo.) to launch Scaleup Colorado, a
multi-year plan designed to systematically address three specific
problems holding back Colorado’s science and technology ecosystem from
growing at a higher rate and creating greater economic impact. These
challenges include the need to grow Colorado’s technology GDP by growing
startup support capacity; improving the success rate of early-stage
startup companies; and helping companies grow from startups to companies
with more than $50 million in revenue per year in an environment where
there is limited access to capital.
Los
Angeles Cleantech Incubator
partnered with
ACRE
(Brooklyn, N.Y.),
Clean
Energy Trust
(Chicago),
Greentown
Learn
(Somerville, Mass.), and
NextEnergy
(Detroit) to establish a standard for measuring and reporting the
economic, environmental and social impact of the portfolio companies
within their network. The team will leverage the incubator’s Just Impact
2016 report and framework, and conduct individual research within
organizations, to evolve a common framework for training their staff and
portfolio companies and measuring and reporting on their individual
impact results.
NextEnergy
(Detroit) partnered with
Prospect
Silicon Valley
(San Jose, Calif.) to ensure that
the cleantech potential of CASE (Connected, Autonomous, Shared,
Electrified) mobility solutions are fully realized by entering into a
sister-city partnership between Detroit and San Jose to address two main
challenges — connecting a cleantech innovation pipeline to industry
players and market opportunities, and bringing private sector/industry
partners together with government and nongovernment organization service
providers to encourage a focus on serving low- to moderate-income market
segments.
Rice
Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship at Rice University
(Houston),
Austin
Technology Incubator at University of Texas-Austin
(Austin,
Texas),
Texas
A&M Engineering Experiment Station Clean Energy Incubator
(College
Station, Texas), and
Texas
State University
) (San
Marco, Texas) to collaborate on a series of programs and initiatives
that will help catalyze the next generation of cleantech entrepreneurs
and serve as a feeder to the IN2 program. The “IN2Bound
Cleantech Accelerator Program” will focus on educating entrepreneurs and
accelerating startups, and connect them to a network of experts who can
provide technical support and mentorship.
“IN2 has engaged stakeholders from universities, incubators
and accelerators in an effort to give a voice to local community
challenges and solutions and to create a strong, collaborative ecosystem
of startup support across the country,” said Richard Adams, director of
the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory. “Our mission is to nurture an ecosystem where more
startups and innovators receive the technical and financial backing, as
well as business mentoring and encouragement they need at their earliest
stages in order to advance toward commercialization of their
technologies.”
The IN2 Channel Partner Awards Program was established with
$5 million of committed funding to be distributed over four years. In
2016, the program supported more than 33 channel partners, encouraging
them to engage with their local communities and play an active role in
helping develop the IN2 ecosystem, which currently includes
20 IN2 portfolio companies, more than 40 channel partners,
and a variety of external clean technology stakeholders across the U.S.
In August 2016, IN2 convened a summit comprised of channel
partners, IN2 stakeholders, investors and subject matter
experts for in-depth discussions on promising clean technology
developments and disruptions, strategic expansion of the IN2 ecosystem
and future initiatives for the IN2 Channel Partner Awards
Program. For more information on the awards program, please visit http://in2ecosystem.com/.
About the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN
2
)
IN2 is a $30 million clean-technology incubator and platform
funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation. Co-administered by and housed at
the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, IN2’s
mission is to speed the path to market for early-stage, clean-technology
entrepreneurs. Companies selected for participation in the program
receive up to $250,000 in non-dilutive funding from Wells Fargo,
technical support and validation from experts at NREL’s facilities, and
the opportunity to beta-test at a Wells Fargo facility or with a
strategic program partner. Launched in 2014 with an initial focus on
supporting scalable solutions to reduce the energy impact of commercial
buildings, IN2 is expanding its focus in 2018 to support
innovation in sectors such as transportation, commercial buildings, food
systems, energy storage, and others with the ultimate goal of fostering
smart and connected communities of the future. http://in2ecosystem.com/.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based
financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s
vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them
succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco,
Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and
consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,300 locations,
13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has
offices in 42 countries and territories to support customers who conduct
business in the global economy. With approximately 268,000 team members,
Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells
Fargo & Company was ranked No. 25 on Fortune’s 2017 rankings of
America’s largest corporations. The Chronicle of Philanthropy ranked
Wells Fargo No. 3 on its most recent list of the top corporate cash
philanthropists. In 2016, Wells Fargo donated $281.3 million to 14,900
nonprofits and Wells Fargo team members volunteered 1.73 million hours
with 50,000 nonprofits. Wells Fargo’s corporate social responsibility
efforts are focused on three priorities: economic empowerment in
underserved communities, environmental sustainability, and advancing
diversity and social inclusion. News, insights and perspectives from
Wells Fargo are also available at Wells
Fargo Stories.