Ken Hayes, Executive Director for the Clean Tech Open nationwide, and Ryan Hoover, Operations Director for CTO West, joined us March 22 for a discussion on the opportunity the CTO provides early-stage entrepreneurs.  Applications for this year’s cohort are due by April 17, so move quickly if you want to take advantage of it.  You can find the application here.

The Clean Tech Open was founded in the same year as CleanStart (2005), originally as a business plan competition in California and Massachusetts.  It has grown into much more now.  It now provides mentoring, training (through a 12-week academy), exposure to sources of capital, and a platform to showcase new companies.  It sees its mission now to help all participants to succeed, to become viable, thriving businesses, and not just to win a prize.  

To participate in the CTO, applicants need to survive a screening process where the team, the technology, and the potential market are examined by volunteer experts.  About 120 teams nationwide are selected each year to go through the process in six regions.  CleanStart provides teams coaching and classes to improve their chances of being selected.  Eight teams from our region have been accepted previously and gone on to greater success.  

The CTO program has become more structured since its inception and its offerings refined to deliver substantial value to those who participate.  One of the most important focal points is to help participants create eight important business deliverables:

1. Business Model Canvas / Strategy
2. Impact Statement (including Sustainability)
3. Customer Segmentation
4. Competitive Landscape
5. Financial Model
6. Executive Summary One-Pager
7. Intro Video (1-2 min)
8. Pitch Deck

Possibly even more important than the formal training, the coaching and the feedback teams receive is the opportunity to get connected to a global network of more than 1,000 industry experts, customers, alumni, channel partners, labs, and investors.  This is such a time-saver for entrepreneurs.  Its importance can’t be overstated.  

Selection of the participants for this year will be announced May 6.  The 12-week training is conducted over the summer in June through August.  The big roll-out Showcase for teams is the Global Forum held in mid-October.  There is a $75 fee to make an application and selected teams must pay a $1350 fee per company to proceed ($975 for student-led teams).  Most of the program will be delivered online, so there is no need to do much travel or to relocate.  

We would encourage you to give this opportunity a good look if you are an early-stage team.  And do it soon.  The application is pretty simple. 

Check out Ken Hayes’s talk from the recent CleanStart Perspective

On March 17, the CMC celebrated its first year with an impressive showcase of about 20 mobility and cleantech companies to which it is connected.  The hit of the show was the unveiling of the big 4WD work truck built by Zeus Electric Chassis, Inc., for SMUD, the first of five it will deliver.  This was a 10,000-pound staked-bed truck with front and back axles powered by separate electric motors and 2,000 pounds of batteries.  It is part of Zeus’ effort to create a family of configurable designs for Class 4-6 work trucks.  In the design, there is no connection between the front and back axles, so the trucks can be stretched or squeezed as much as needed.  It is built on a ladder frame that can be fit to purpose and is very utilitarian.  

Also at the show were displays of remote-controlled electric tractors for vegetable farms, Neptune e- scooters, Arcimotor 3-wheeled, 2-passenger freeway-ready EVs with a $17,900 price tag, Terzo Power’s latest hydraulic innovations, GridMatrix with its software for optimizing use of roadways, engineering company PEM Motion (one of the CMC founders), a Rivian truck (first one I actually have seen) and a selection of well-known EVs to ogle.  

We chatted with Mike Terzo about the progress of his company, and it is a great story.  They are well into contract manufacturing their efficient hydraulic devices for customers in the trucking industry—a bit of a surprise since they though ag harvesting machines would be the first customers.  But with shipments of over a thousand of his products he has clearly found his market.  

We were there with our new expo trailer—one you can also see up close at our MeetUp on March 24 .  This is intended to be used at events to stimulate interest in taking cleantech ideas to market and learning how to do that, but can be used for a number of purposes.  It is a “display booth in a box”.

You can also learn more about what PEM Motion is doing in Sacramento at our Perspectives event with them at 9 am also on March 24 .

The CMC is emerging as a good connection point for many things—workforce development, new vehicle prototyping, vehicle testing, and company development—all centered on mobility.  It is a great addition to the cleantech ecosystem growing in our region.