Good News on Clean Tech Innovation:  CalCEF Showcase Night

Good News on Clean Tech Innovation: CalCEF Showcase Night

It is always a pleasant surprise to hear about new and very clever clean tech being pursued by eager entrepreneurs.  We recently had that exciting experience when we attended the California Clean Energy Fund’s latest investor night on May 15th in San Francisco.

CalCEF was started about a decade ago with money collected from the utilities to invest in promising new startups.  It attracted other funding as well as using its funds to catalyze other investments in companies. They have funded 40 companies that have raised $1.5 billion in total.  They have a good record in finding and nurturing some of the best clean tech companies in California. We are very pleased that several of those originated here in our region.  Part of the reason in fact we attended the meeting on the 15th was that two of our CleanStart companies being helped by CalCEF with seed money were making presentations. And we learned about 4 more companies that are doing some exciting things.

The two home-grown teams were EnerDapt and Lucent Optics.  We recently profiled EnerDapt and its AI-driven SaaS providing its assistant “Hank” that helps find energy savings in medium size commercial buildings that are mostly overlooked by the larger building energy management players.  

Lucent Optics is an outgrowth of a long-established local company called SVV Technologies, headed by Sergey Vasilyev.  He and his Dad Viktor have specialized in some very clever optics to improve use of sunlight. We knew them in 2005 when they had a novel way of focusing sunlight on PV panels.  In their new company Lucent, they have a transparent film to put on windows that will diffuse the light coming in so that it spreads around the room to such a degree that little artificial lighting is needed.  It looks like magic. We have no idea how the film does this. On the window it is transparent and doesn’t appear to blur what is seen. It is a very thin film and clings to the inside of the window. They are getting some good interest from customers.  

Sort of nearby was Nativus Power, based in Reno.  They presented their high-efficiency, lightweight window air conditioner product.  We have never seen anything like this. It is still a vapor-compression unit, but with a unique spinning heat exchanger which is so efficient (a ten-fold gain in neat transfer) it is markedly smaller and in turn allows the compressor to be downsized too.  Think of a package no larger than a 2010-vintage desktop PC light enough to be shipped directly to a home and installed in minutes. Their target markets are countries where apartment dwellers generally add A/C on their own. If you have been in a big city in Asia or South America, you know what this looks like–hundreds of A/C units hanging out of windows on a ten story apartment building.  Their product is much smaller and cheaper to run (67% lower operating cost). They indicated interest from some of the biggest names in appliances like GE and Haier.  We will see if we can entice them down for a future MeetUp.  

Next on the Hit Parade was Lilac Solutions.  They have an ingenious way of extracting lithium from brines using an ion exchange resin in beads.  Conventional lithium recovery involves mining salt ores, making a brine, precipitating out a slurry that is enriched in lithium, and then drying that in evaporation pans.  It is an expensive and weeks-long process. And it doesn’t work well when the original salt has a lot of calcium or magnesium in it, just mostly sodium. The Lilac process takes hours, doubles the recovery rate of lithium (from 40% to 80%), works fine with high calcium and magnesium salts, and can harvest lithium economically from salts down to one-tenth the limit for the conventional process (from 500 ppm down to 50 ppm).  Clearly this enormously expands the potential sources of lithium for batteries and relieves the anxiety of becoming dependent on only a few countries. They too are getting a lot of attention.

The final two presenters were:

  • 10Power, a social venture that provides solar finance and develops commercial-scale solar projects for microgrids in emerging economies; and
  • South 8 Technologies that had liquefied gas electrolyte (under pressure to keep it liquied) in conventional lithium ion batteries, allowing for a substantial increase in energy density and exceptional performance at record low temperatures.

The most important lesson from the session was that major innovations are still being turned up all the time.  There is still plenty of opportunity for startups and investors in cleantech. There are billion dollar ideas still out there.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Qidong is a CleanStart Associate who follows new technologies that can connect with his passion for sustainability, education and economic empowerment. Helping CleanStart and clean tech startups in the Sacramento Region, he is looking to help positively impact the world. He recently graduated from UC San Diego and has a B.S. in Managerial Economics. His multicultural background helps companies approach problems from new perspective.in the region.

Welcome Back, HeliosAltas!

Welcome Back, HeliosAltas!

After a three-year hiatus to step back to rethink its product and markets, Helios Altas is preparing to introduce a new and improved PowerBall and PowerWheel to the market. Mike Carroll, CEO, and his team have been working hard to unlock the potential for this technology and come up with several clever new designs. Helios, headquartered in Roseville, California is an early-stage CleanTech startup that builds micro hydroelectric generators for distributed power grids. The company’s flagship products, PowerBall and PowerWheel are waterwheels that drive generators to produce clean electricity. They use water flowing in canals, rivers, tides  and the base of dams day and night. No impediment is needed. During high-flow times or when a lot of deris is in the water, the unit lifts itself up to avoid being submerged or damaged. Helios is currently developing a range of PowerBall units from 100w to 4kW and PowerWheel units from 5kW to 40kW. They have a proprietary generator self contained in the water wheel allowing their wheels to generate sufficient energy in low flow areas to make them economical even in smaller units.  This adds up to Helio’s products having a comparative advantage by being 1) easy to install, 2) self-contained, 3) scalable, and 4) compact when compared to other systems. On top of all that Helios’ units generate over 3 x the energy of similarly rated wind and solar generators when the water is flowing 24/7.   They are targeting developing countries, especially rural areas far from the grid.  They see a niche market of $700 million in sales. They are not envisioning much of a market in the US.  Helio has placed its prototypes in California and the Philippines and is constantly collecting data for improvement. Mike envisions a mass deployment of their technology in the developing countries particularly concentrated in South East Asia and India.  They have a number of development agency prospects in the pipeline for situations where wind and solar are not suitable. Their model is to sell the equipment, and manufacture it in low cost the countries near where it will be installed. More information can be found here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Qidong is a CleanStart Associate who follows new technologies that can connect with his passion for sustainability, education and economic empowerment. Helping CleanStart and clean tech startups in the Sacramento Region, he is looking to help positively impact the world. He recently graduated from UC San Diego and has a B.S. in Managerial Economics. His multicultural background helps companies approach problems from new perspective.in the region.

Big Buzz at the Global Summit–And More

Big Buzz at the Global Summit–And More

Sacramento just had its biggest tech startup event ever.  This Tuesday (May 8) seven clean tech companies got some great exposure when they found themselves in a room of 1,000 people at the Second Impact Global Venture Summit at the Golden 1 center.  There was Athena Intelligence, CarbonBlu, Enerdapt, Empower Energy, Tenkiv, Terzo Power, and Solar Roof Dynamics. Jack Crawford, Impact VC General partner, kicked off the event welcoming startups and investors to the capital of the 5th largest economy in the world. Excitement continued with speakers from Mayor Steinberg, to Betty Yee, and to panels of active investors.  This was a big step-up from the First Summit last year, which was very good itself.

At rows and rows of exhibit tables, 75 tech companies of all types were showcased on the floor of the Golden 1 center, surrounded by investor and panel discussions that were recorded and shared around the world.  It was an amazing event. CleanStart had its own table and encouraged investors and supporters to take a close look at all the green companies not only at the show but also on our map of the 100 core cleantech companies in the region.

Checking with our exhibitors at the end of the day, they all said they made many important connections to potential investors, to advisors, and to potential customers.

There is huge value in getting this kind of attention.  This Summit and the Five Star Bank invitation-only pitchfest in March have really put Sacramento on the radar screen for investors.  There will be another Summit next year, and Five Star is hoping to do two of its events each year. The next is planned for the fall.  These are golden opportunities for startups to get in front of the right people, and CleanStart is here to help get you in the pipeline.  Both events are selective, so preparation is essential. There are other events outside the region that can be very good as well, but are even more competitive while offering significant cash prizes.  The Clean Tech Open is one of those, and we also can help get you in there.

And don’t forget the Big Bang competition at UC Davis each year.  We sponsor a special prize for the best clean tech business plan in the Big Bang, available along with the other standard prizes for the top three overall.  The rules now are much less restrictive on who can participate, so don’t overlook this opportunity.

If you need to raise money, these are some efficient ways to get your story out to the right crowd.  Contact us if you want to know more.

 

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

Welcome New Partners

Welcome New Partners

Welcome to Two New Partners

CleanStart is pleased to announce Valley Vision and Tech Futures Group as it’s newest partners.  Together we will be working to promote entrepreneurship in the Region along with adoption of clean tech.

Valley Vision’s team has a long history of working with CleanStart and has been one of our big supporters behind the scenes. Our Partnership will connect startups with regional policy makers to deliver a healthy clean tech economy.

The Tech Futures Groups is part of the non-profit SBDC and provides advisory services to qualified startups, using their broad network of mentors.  We are looking forward to holding an event with them in the coming months to connect them with more of our cleantech community.