Students Pitch at the “Destination Decarbonization Challenge”

Students Pitch at the “Destination Decarbonization Challenge”

May 11, 2023

Last week, the Water, Energy, and Technology (WET) Center at Fresno State hosted a pitch event for undergraduate students interested in student entrepreneurship and decarbonization. Dubbed the “Destination Decarbonization Challenge,” the event provided an opportunity for students from different universities across California to present innovative ideas aimed at reducing carbon emissions in the Central Valley.

Many student teams applied but eight made it to the competition. At the competition the student teams presented their projects to a panel of judges consisting of environmental and industry experts. The teams had the chance to win cash prizes, with the first-place team receiving $6,000 without any restrictions.

The competition showcased some exceptional student entrepreneurship skills, with the winning team composed of three Fresno State students. Team Project Zero developed a device prototype capable of measuring carbon content in soil, helping farmers maximize their land’s efficiency. The second-place award of $4,000 went to Team Six-Thousand Dollar,who proposed an app-based carpool program for students reducing vehicle miles traveled, lowering carbon emissions and building relationships between the students while saving them money on fuel and auto maintenance.

The third-place award of $2,500 went to Team SustainaBulldogs, who made an ambitious pitch to implement self-contained electricity microgrids across the Central Valley, specifically Fresno County, using urban green space for carbon sequestration and data analysis to determine the best trees for each location.

The Destination Decarbonization Challenge launched by the WET Center in December 2022 is an excellent opportunity for student entrepreneurs to showcase their skills in decarbonization. It is open to undergraduate students in groups of two to four, providing a platform for young innovators to present new and unique solutions to reduce carbon emissions in the Central Valley. The prize money comes with no restrictions, and the hope is that it will be invested in the next project, encouraging students to take their ideas to the next level.

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.

Sponsors

SMUD
CMC
RiverCity Bank

Weintraub | Tobin, Revrnt, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz, Greenberg Traurig

ToloPhoto’s Bumpy Startup Journey

ToloPhoto’s Bumpy Startup Journey

Dec 21, 2022

Photo from CalSEED website, awardees Cohort 4

In our December 13 Perspectives webcast, Thomas Karagianes, CEO of ToloPhoto, shared the story of his road to building a business.  He reinforced the importance of spending time early-on discovering customers and networking to find the resources he needed.  

In 2015 Thomas had a good idea.  Seeing all the problems in deterioration of utility distribution and transmission systems in remote areas causing wildfires, he came up with the notion of doing inspections with a drone rather than sending crews in the field to assess the condition of the systems manually.  Not just any drone would do, it had to be one that took exceptional high-resolution pictures.  Then those pictures needed to be analyzed better than having someone look at 100K+ photos one at a time.  The savings in time and in the costs of avoiding catastrophic failures on the system that could lead to sparking incredibly destructive wildfires could be enormous.  How did he go about finding what he needed to build his business?

He tried going to the people in the utilities he thought would have the most to gain from his innovation, but discovered the well-known aversion in utilities to taking risks with new technology.  He tried going directly to VCs to get the funds to build prototypes, but they told him that without a utility customer lined-up, they could not afford to have their money tied up for the time it would take to get to profitability.  

In the world of startups, Thomas was discovering the “Valley of Death” for himself—up close and personal.  By 2020, he found the value of spending more time seeking advice and building a network of connections.  The decision that made all the difference for him was to apply to CalSEED.  It originated in 2017 as a way to support early stage innovators that need money to develop and test their ideas.  It exists to bridge that “Valley of Death.”  ToloPhoto was awarded a $150,000 Phase 1 concept award and then did so well, it advanced to Phase 2 with an additional $450,000 to develop and test a prototype.  Now Thomas has much of what he needs to get a foot in the door with customers and investors.  Now he is getting exposure to the Electric Power Research Institute, to mentors, and to more sympathetic investors.  

What he still needs is at least one customer that says, “I gotta have it.”  But he is enthusiastic to keep searching.  In our discussion, we talked about other industries which might need his technology, particularly those that are desperate to inspect thousands of bridges for corrosion so serious it might cause a collapse.  The current method of manual inspection from bucket trucks under the bridge is far too costly and time-consuming.  

In summary, Thomas said the big lesson from his journey is not to spend too much time heads down developing the technology.  Asking lots of questions about what customers want and who the real customers are pays a lot of dividends.  

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, BlueTech Valley, Revrnt, River City Bank

Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz, Greenberg Traurig, California Mobility Center

A Friendly New Lender for Climate Tech Companies

A Friendly New Lender for Climate Tech Companies

Jul 11, 2022

Our friend Sedale Turbovsky at OpenGrants did a web interview with Dmitry Gershenson of Enduring Planet recently to highlight the increased availability of loans to build your company.  Enduring Planet is a much different lender than a bank because they understand startups and want to see more companies based on sustainability succeed.  Accordingly, their lending requirements are more generous than one typically finds at a bank.  

Specifically what Dmitry is offering is a revenue-based loan.  A company has to be generating revenue and growing to qualify, but doesn’t need to be immediately profitable.  It needs to show revenue of at least $25,000 per month and be growing 30% year-over-year.  Loan terms are pretty simple.  No collateral required and no personal guarantees.  As Dmitry says, this is the fastest and least expensive capital available.

Dmitry has also recognized a need for loans for another type of situation—cash flow loans to bridge the gap between expending money on a project funded by the government and getting reimbursed for that cost.  This may take more than 90 days.  Government grants and contracts are wonderful sources of non-dilutive capital, but a company can go broke dealing with the reality of the slow payment of invoices.  Dmitry hopes to have this offering ready before the end of the year.

Sedale recorded and transcribed the hour-long session and it is available here.  Check it out and even if you don’t qualify, keep this lender in mind when you are seeking capital.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

CleanStart Sponsors

Weintraub | Tobin, BlueTech Valley, Revrnt, 

Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz, Greenberg Traurig

State Of CleanTech

State Of CleanTech

May 3, 2022

Since 2005 CleanStart has been working to build the Greater Sacramento region as a clean tech hub. Because of this work and the growing community Sacramento is well positioned to capitalize on the energy transition. Becoming a self sustaining beehive of activity cleantech hub with $5 billion in revenue and 10,000 jobs is just around the corner. With everyone from private industry to government to individuals our regional energy transition could mean an increased quality of life, equitable economic development and sustainable living for all.

Clean Tech has been hot. There have been high valuations and public successes. While the market may eb and flow, the demand for clean energy and innovative solutions will still grow with people seeking solutions to reduce the impact of climate change and demanding energy independence from authoritative regimes. With this demand, receptive policy makers, and innovation expect the growth and returns to continue. 

Recently our region has had some very positive trends with new companies launching regularly and investment coming to the region.  Regional investment in Clean Tech Companies that began as startups here hit a new record $1.95 Billion since 2019.  For the first time, 5 regional companies have attracted attention from national and international investors and corporate partners. This is a result of support provided to companies, getting their technologies investment ready.

Over the past year I’ve been documenting and cataloging and connecting with every company I could identify in the Sacramento region to find out what they are working on, how many are working on it, and how much revenue they are bringing to the region. This part of CleanStart’s progress report, we do these every couple years to gauge our progress towards turning the region into a clean tech hub. The result has been in over 9900 jobs in the Sacramento region and over 100 clean tech companies these clean tech companies are producing defendable IP in batteries, zero emissions fuels, home efficiency and more.

I previewed the Progress Report in my “State of Clean Tech” talk at the 2022 Clean Tech Showcase. We are nearly to our goal and the beehive of activity is activating the virtuous cycle supporting companies’ growth. Now we need to harvest the ecosystem to serve as a catalyst for the energy transition in the Greater Sacramento region.

Past Progress Reports
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.

Sponsors

SMUD
CMC
RiverCity Bank

Weintraub | Tobin, Revrnt, Moss Adams, PowerSoft.biz, Greenberg Traurig

New Energy Nexus Expands Its Mission

New Energy Nexus Expands Its Mission

Apr 19, 2022

On March 7, we heard from Denise Rushing the newly appointed Managing Director for California within New Energy Nexus about the accomplishments and aggressive goals it has for the future.  By way of background, what is now New Energy Nexus began with $30 million of seed money in 2014 coming out of the settlement of the PG&E bankruptcy to create the California Clean Energy Fund (CalCEF).  With the help of more established clean tech funds, CalCEF began investing in individual startups, hoping that the success of those companies would lead to gains that could be recycled into new investments.

In 2016, the CEC created a new program called CalSEED to inject about $25 million per year into new startups through non-dilutive grants rather than equity investments, accelerating the commercialization of innovations from startups far more than the original $30 million revolving investment fund had.  That same year, CalCEF reconstituted itself as New Energy Nexus with a greatly expanded vision to promote acceleration of clean energy ventures worldwide.  Since that time New Energy Nexus has funded, grown, and built innovation ecosystems around 15+ new accelerators in 9 countries, mostly in Asia.  Denise said now that their efforts have assisted in landing over $1.5 billion in new investments for participating startups.  With the global expansion, they have now assisted over 400 startups.  The network they have created and the resources they offer could be very valuable to any startup.  

Their approach has been to create extensive networks and ecosystems, and to support startups over six key activities as shown in this diagram.  They have many useful tools on their website and provide easy access to those provided by others.

“Our Therory of Change” – New Energy Nexus

 

They also manage the CalTestBed voucher program to subsidize testing and validation of prototypes startups create, generating critical data that investors need to demonstrate the technology does what is claimed.  

Of particular note, Denise mentioned that applications for Cohort 6 of the CalSEED program will open in January.  As you may recall, that Cohort was postponed from this spring, so it is good to know things will be getting back on track.  

Denise herself has quite an impressive background.  She is a registered mechanical engineer and served 8 years on the Lake County Board of Supervisors.  After spending several years with PG&E in marketing and then with 4 tech startups, she founded Tactical Partners in 2000.   There she offered strategic and marketing advice to climate tech companies.  After 20 years, she advanced to New Energy Nexus and then was elevated to her current position.

To get the full benefit of this conversation, a recording of this session is available below.