Exelon Foundation and Exelon Corp. named this week the startups selected for their inaugural round of the $20 million Climate Change Investment Initiative (2c2i), while opening up year two to new applicants for projects addressing climate change in Atlantic City, NJ, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.
The nation’s largest generator of carbon-free energy chose 10 startups that will share $1 million in direct funding. Each will be tasked to develop new technologies that mitigate the impacts of climate change, while building resiliency and addressing challenges in underserved communities.
The Initiative has the Exelon Foundation investing $10 million over 10 years in early-stage energy focused startups that will be matched by Exelon Corporation with up to a $10 million investment of in-kind services. Those services will include mentoring entrepreneurs to gain access to sources of capital, develop business plans, allocate financial resources and fulfill regulatory requirements. Returns from these investments will benefit the nonprofit Exelon Foundation to support its philanthropic mission.
“Now more than ever, it’s become clear that real, fundamental change often comes from taking action at the local level. We purposely designed the 2c2i initiative to support early-stage, often-overlooked startups with the potential to make a meaningful, on-the-ground impact on our communities’ climate goals, health and environment.” said Chris Gould, Exelon Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer.
The startups’ profiles included:
- 50 percent minority- or women-owned businesses,
- 60 percent focused on greenhouse gas mitigation, and
- 40 percent addressing resiliency and adaptation.
With the exception of one, all are either headquartered or already actively engaged in communities within Exelon’s service area. Those receiving $100K each from the Exelon Foundation are:
- Amidus Resilience: Washington, D.C.,-based and designs, develops and delivers solar and battery storage solutions for affordable housing communities.
- ATP-MD, LLC: African American-owned and Maryland-based it uses two innovative, patented and cost-effective processes that generate multiple environmental benefits using specially-bred, non-evasive plants (bio-crops) and their resulting biomass.
- BlocPower: African American-owned technology company that developed a software platform for analyzing, financing, monitoring and managing clean energy projects, allowing building owners to identify and complete energy efficiency and electrification upgrades in urban communities.
- Dynamhex: Kansas City based and minority owned that developed a software platform leveraging complex energy consumption data that enables close collaboration among a range of city, community and utility stakeholders to achieve local carbon-reduction goals.
- Greenprint Partners: Chicago based and a certified woman-owned/B-Corporation that reduces water pollution and flooding by working with water utilities and landowners to design, build, finance and maintain high-impact green stormwater infrastructure (GSI).
- GrowFlux: Philadelphia-based and is a horticultural tech company that specializes in data-driven cultivation technology and offers an ecosystem of commercial-scale, wireless controls and sensors enable emerging indoor farms and automated greenhouses.
- NETenergy: Chicago-based and a minority-owned thermal energy storage company that has created a unique hybrid energy storage/air conditioner technology with the potential to reduce peak energy demand by over 50%, reduce peak energy consumption by 20%, and reduce overall energy consumption by more than 10% over standard air conditioners.
- New Ecology: Boston-based and has developed a remote monitoring and optimization (ReMO) system to improve the performance of buildings with central boilers.
- Propagate Ventures: Developed an analytics and project development platform that reduce the cost and provide the resources needed for agroforestry, which is the strategic integration of fruit, nut and timber trees with agriculture crops to ensure long term resiliency.
- Radiator Labs: Invented the Cozy™, a wireless, low-cost and easily installed retrofit that drops on top of steam heat radiators, providing a solution to the chronic problem of uneven heating in apartment buildings.
The Exelon Foundation and Exelon Corporation in partnership with Freshwater Advisors is actively scouting for promising new startups and projects within Exelon’s service territory. Applicants must demonstrate their projects will benefit one or more of Exelon’s six major urban markets (Atlantic City, Chicago, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.), support work in under-resourced communities and have the potential to do one of the following:
- Mitigate greenhouse gas emissions;
- Boost the resiliency of urban infrastructure (e.g., the power grid, transportation systems, buildings, vacant land) against flood, stormwater and rising temperatures;
- Help cities, businesses and communities adapt to climate change; or
- Help achieve a state or city’s sustainability and climate goals.
For more information, visit https://www.exelonfoundation.org/environment.html.
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