Terzo Power Selected as 2018 Sustainability Innovator of the Year

Terzo Power Selected as 2018 Sustainability Innovator of the Year

Nov 6, 2018

On November 1, the third annual Innovation Awards were announced in 8 categories.  This event is put on by Stoel Rives law firm, Moss Adams accounting firm, and the Sacramento Business Journal.  Over 250 people attended. Ninety-five companies were nominated for these awards, ten of them for the Sustainability category.  Other categories covered food and agriculture, advanced manufacturing, government and civic technology, hardware and electronics, biopharma, medical technology, and software.  Three from our cleantech community made it to the finals. Efficient Drivetrains, the hydrid drive company that spun out of UC Davis, was a finalist in the Hardware and Electronics Category.  In the Sustainability category, Terzo Power and BoxPower were finalists. Terzo got the nod as the winner in this category, and CEO Mike Terzo gave a shout-out to CleanStart in his acceptance speech for the help we have given them over the years.  Thanks, Mike!

The top award Innovator of the Year went to Wide Open Walls, who has helped put Sacramento on the national map by adding Art Murals to buildings all over the city.

The process for these awards will start again in June next year, so be ready to apply!

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.

Second Five Star Bank Pitchfest Larger than the First

Second Five Star Bank Pitchfest Larger than the First

Nov 5, 2018

About 125 attendees came to the Oct. 31 invitation-only pitchfest, with four dozen investors and 25 presenting companies.  After the inaugural one in March, around 25% of the presenting companies got funded, making it one of the most successful events ever held in the area for connecting investment-ready companies to money.  The format of these events provides companies with lots of time for networking and conversation. Each company has a booth in addition to making a seven minute pitch with five minutes for questions. A panel of judges scores each presenter and an overall winner is announced, winning a nice bottle of Champagne (“The Battle for the Bubbly”).  But winning, while nice, is not really the point. It’s getting exposure to those that might be willing to write a check.

There were companies in food and ag, medical, software, and clean tech.  The Bottle of Bubbly went to Factor Five, with its stem cell-based anti-aging product for the skin.  

It is not easy to be accepted into this event.  Less than half of the companies applying get an invitation.  Two of our clean tech companies made it–Terzo Power with its efficient hybrid hydraulic systems, and BoxPower, the “micro-grid in a box” company.  We have done blogs on both as well as had them at our MeetUps. They both had outstanding presentations. Both were looking for a few hundred thousand dollars in investment.  We hope they were successful!

The third of these pitchfests should be early next year, so start now to get your pitch ready.  We can help with that.

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.

Charging Meetup

Charging Meetup

Nov 1, 2018

This week our Cleantech Meetup was Spooky popular.  Hosted at The Workshop Sacramento incubator and co-working space near McKinley Park, the meetup filled the place with entrepreneurs, policy makers, scientists and Investors all there to hear about the state of current charging and Zero Emissions Vehicle (ZEV) policy.  It was the best-attended MeetUp so far.

Guy Hall from the Electric Auto Association, a group that has been around for over 100 years kicked off the event by summarizing charging. Then CleanStart welcomed local business success story Clipper Creek. Will Barnett, Director of Sales shared their story of becoming a top charging hardware provider in the US and world. They have shipped over 75,000 charging systems and supplied the internals for another 500,000 convenience chargers for the major EV manufacturers.  They have now grown to 50 employees. They talked about all the different models of chargers they offer, including fast chargers. They clearly are specializing in the Level 2 systems, though, the ones that operate at 220v. Check out our blog from when we visited Clipper Creek this year. Throughout the first presentations we had lively discussion that almost turned into a panel discussion that included all 4 presenters,

Educating the audience on local actions around charging, Dwight MacCurdy of SMUD, discussed all the work SMUD has been doing around promoting the adoption of ZEVs by building EV charging infrastructure. Through rebates, charging locations, and education SMUD has a whole host of programs.

Dr. Elise Keddie introduced the hot topic of Volkswagen’s (VW) Cycle 2 ZEV investment plan as part of the settlement of the fraudulent emissions testing case. She also introduced Tony Gonzalez of Electrify America (a wholly-owned subsidiary through which VW is investing in charging).  With the work SMUD, other utilities, the CEC, CARB, and Electrify America are doing, Dr Keddie said California is leading the way in charging investment but has yet to reach half of what is needed to accommodate the growth of EVs.

This was a great meetup and if you missed out, don’t worry, we still have one left this year on November 27th.  And if you can’t wait till then Check out Green Drinks early November and our Calendar for other events!

Get the Presenters Slides!
Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas is the Executive Director of CleanStart. Thomas has a strong background in supporting small businesses, leadership, financial management and is proficient in working with nonprofits. He has a BS in Finance and a BA in Economics from California State University, Chico. Thomas has a passion for sustainability and a commitment to supporting non-profits in the region.

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