Clean-technology incubator program expands focus beyond commercial buildings
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE:WFC) today announced a $20 million expansion
of the Wells
Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), a program that advances
emerging clean technologies and startup companies. IN2, now a
$30 million program co-administered by Wells Fargo and the U.S.
Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), will
expand its focus to additional sectors such as transportation, microgrid
solutions and sustainable agriculture, and implement a Channel Partner
Award program.
Launched in 2014, the IN2 program was developed to speed the
path to market for early-stage, clean-technology entrepreneurs. Its
initial focus was to support scalable solutions to reduce the energy
impact of commercial buildings, leveraging a network of channel partners
for participant referrals. 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 in
Golden, Colo., and the opportunity to beta-test at a Wells Fargo
facility or with a strategic program partner.
To date, the program has funded 20 early-stage startups from across the
U.S. and has seen the successful exits of two Round 1 awardees via
acquisition. Beta tests have been conducted within the Wells Fargo
footprint and the program has attracted national and international
interest as a unique and successful model to accelerate the
commercialization of environmentally beneficial technologies.
With the additional funding, IN2 will leverage its
commercialization model to build out additional verticals to drive
innovation in sectors such as transportation, sustainable agriculture,
energy storage and others. The additional funding will also be used to
develop a Channel Partner Award program to provide financial support for
its more than 40 Channel Partners, made up of universities, business
plan competitions, and other incubators, that maintain a pipeline of
startup referrals to be considered for participation in the IN2
program.
"In the three years since the launch of IN2, we’ve
learned that the success of the program is very much dependent on the
support and mentoring our participants receive at their earliest stages
– at universities and through other incubator and accelerator programs –
prior to joining IN2,” said Ashley Grosh, vice president and
IN2 co-lead for Wells Fargo. “We are very excited to leverage
this additional funding to extend the successful IN2 program
model beyond the commercial building space to support innovation in
other important clean-tech verticals, and to nurture an ecosystem where
more startups and innovators receive the technical support and
encouragement they need at their earliest stages in order to advance
toward commercialization of their technologies.”
Wells Fargo will announce the additional expansion funding for its IN2
program during NREL’s annual Industry
Growth Forum
on April 13 at The Westin
Downtown Denver, where IN2 leaders will launch a dialogue
with city officials, policy experts and key industry leaders on how to
make their vision of a sustainable, clean-tech ecosystem a reality.
"In addition to providing continued and increased support for the
program, we are seeking to further connect our network of key
stakeholders, industry experts, university programs and channel partners
in order to be successful in expanding the focus and dialogue around a
long-term, sustainable ecosystem," said Richard Adams, director of the
Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (IEC) at NREL. “During the life
of the IN2 program, our goal is to stimulate smart and
connected communities by leveraging the technical expertise and thought
leadership provided by NREL to support innovative technological
breakthroughs that will lead us to a more sustainable future.”
For more information, visit wf.in2.com.
About Wells Fargo
Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based
financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Founded in 1852
and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking,
insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance
through more than 8,600 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 269,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one
in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was
ranked No. 27 on Fortune’s 2016 rankings of America’s largest
corporations. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’
financial needs and help them succeed financially. Wells Fargo’s
corporate social responsibility efforts are focused on three priorities:
economic empowerment in underserved communities, advancing diversity and
social inclusion, and environmental sustainability. The Chronicle of
Philanthropy, on its most recent list of the top corporate cash
philanthropists, ranked Wells Fargo No. 3. 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. News, insights
and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo
Stories.