In the first ever virtual finals, eight companies were selected to compete for the grand prize at the Cleantech Open Global Forum.

Boston, MA -- October 2, 2020 -- Cleantech Open Northeast, the Northeast division of Cleantech Open, the world’s largest cleantech accelerator, announced its 2020 regional winners: Andluca (a New Jersey company in Chemicals & Advanced Materials), Polycarbin (a Pennsylvania company in Waste), RenewCO2 (a New Jersey company in Chemicals & Advanced Materials), and T-Omega Wind (a Massachusetts company in Energy Generation). Each of these companies will receive $10,000 in cash plus additional in-kind services and will go on to represent the Northeast at the Cleantech Open Global Forum on October 21 and October 23. There, they will compete with emerging environmental and energy technology firms throughout the nation for the national grand prize.

The four regional winners were selected and announced by a judging panel of top cleantech and business leaders at the first ever virtual Cleantech Open Northeast Regional Finals. The event featured top startups with operations in Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The Finals Judges made the final determination of the Winners. On September 30 at the Semi-Finals 59 judges from across the US came together virtually to see all 40 teams pitch. They had previously reviewed curriculum deliverables. The Semi-Finals Judges selected the top six teams to have the opportunity to pitch in front of a live audience and a panel of Finals Judges.

225 people attended the virtual Finals event, including entrepreneurs, investors, business leaders and public officials. The Finals Judges were Bhargavi Chevva of Breakthrough Energy Ventures; Ramsay Huntley of Wells Fargo; Jiong Ma of Braemar Ventures, Stephen Pike of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC); Pat Sapinsley of Urban Future Lab; Kevin Self of Schneider Electric; and Steven Wolk of NYSERDA. 

The four winning teams represented solutions in Chemicals & Advanced Materials, Energy Generation, and Waste. Of the 40 companies graduating from the 2020 Cleantech Open Northeast accelerator, 11 are from New York, 10 from Massachusetts, five from New Jersey, five from Canada, three from Pennsylvania, two from Maine, two from Vermont, and one from Florida (this one moved from Massaachusetts during the pandemic). 

Beyond the four winners, two Finalist teams pitched at the Finals -- Atrevida Science (a New York company in Energy Generation) and CLIP (a New York company in Transportation). These two teams, as well as Harmony Desal (a Massachusetts company in Water) and Sunthetics

(a New York company in Chemicals & Advanced Materials) were selected as Runners Up to represent the Northeast in the competition at the Global Forum. All Cleantech Open Northeast graduating teams are invited to attend the Global Forum where they can showcase, meet investors, and expand their networks.

More about the 2020 Cleantech Open Northeast cohort

View the recording of the  2020 Northeast Regional Finals Live Pitch Competition here.

2020 NORTHEAST WINNERS

Andluca (Winner)

Category: Chemicals & Advanced Materials

Based in: New Jersey

Summary: Andluca, a Princeton University spin-out, has developed UV-solar-powered smart glass for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. Andluca’s patented technologies can reduce building energy use by up to 40% while significantly enhancing tenant comfort and productivity. Unlike available wired smart glass products – which require major renovation and installation by an electrician – Andluca’s wireless smart glass can be installed quickly and non-disruptively. 

Polycarbin (Winner)

Category: Waste

Based in: Pennsylvania

Summary: Polycarbin is a software-enabled sustainability company attempting to capture the 3 billion lbs. of scientific plastic in the biomedical waste streams of today and turning it into the lab products of tomorrow. They accomplish this mission utilizing a front-end diversion system informed by waste analytics. Polycarbin diverts this stream of plastic and converts it into laboratory products valued at $25.00/lbs, turning scrap worth hundreds of millions into laboratory products worth tens of billions.

RenewCO2 (Winner)

Category: Chemicals & Advanced Materials

Based in: New Jersey

Summary: CO2 is a massive waste product of many industries and is emitted to the atmosphere on the scale of 300 billion tons/year globally, causing major environmental damage, losses in agricultural productivity, and health. RenewCO2’s disruptive technology uses the direct electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction to produce precursors (monomers) of some of the major polymers and chemical feedstocks used today.

T-Omega Wind (Winner)

Category: Energy Generation

Based in: Massachusetts 

Summary: Offshore wind could supply all US electricity via 120,000 10MW turbines, but existing units are so expensive ($35M each) that electricity must be subsidized down to $0.07/kWh. T-Omega Wind’s patent pending design uses existing blades and a new tower/base. The cost is $10M, electricity $0.04/kWh. Thousands a year are buildable by existing small businesses with little investment. 

2020 NORTHEAST RUNNERS-UP 

Atrevida Science (Finalist) 

Category: Energy Generation

Based in: New York

Summary: Atrevida Science has the patent and licensing rights for an active morphing wind turbine blade. Their blade adapts to an optimal shape based on wind conditions. This capability increases efficiency, mitigates loads, and improves stability. Bigger blades, environmentally unfriendly static designs and insistence on land-based systems are the old paradigms. Their blade delivers active control and is the new paradigm.

CLIP (Finalist)

Category: Transportation

Based in: New York

Summary: CLIP is a portable e-motor that transforms your own/shared bike to an e-bike, instantly, thanks to our proprietary auto-grip handle. Instead of positioning e-motors on bikes as a permanent feature, their unique approach provides e-motors as an on-demand upgrade. Clip's business model is Direct to Consumers, online sales initially.

Harmony Desal 

Category: Water

Based in: Massachusetts

Summary:  $30 billion will be invested in seawater desalination over the next 5 years. The dominant technology in desalination today is Reverse Osmosis (RO). While RO is trusted and proven, it is also energy intensive. Our technology, batch RO, is the most energy-efficient RO process and can make seawater desalination more affordable and sustainable. Our beachhead market is household water purifiers in India, where we are able to reduce the waste produced by these systems by 66%.

Sunthetics

Category: Chemicals & Advanced Materials

Based in: New York

Summary: Sunthetics addresses one of the top contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, the chemical industry, by developing more sustainable chemical manufacturing equipment. Their technology replaces the use of heat to power reactions with electricity, improving raw material usage, energy usage, and waste production, while enabling integration of renewable energies. Their first target is a key intermediate of Nylon 6,6, adiponitrile, which they can make using 30% less raw material and energy.

About Cleantech Open

Cleantech Open is the world’s largest cleantech accelerator and is dedicated to providing entrepreneurs and technologists the resources needed to launch a successful cleantech company. Our mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental, and economic challenges. A 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, Cleantech Open provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships that turn clever ideas into successful global cleantech companies. Over the past eight years, Cleantech Open has trained over 1,200 early-stage clean technology startup entrepreneurs. A majority of alumni have survived the merciless technology startup "valley of death" and gone on to raise $1.2 billion and create over 3,000 clean economy jobs. Fueled by a network of more than 2,000 volunteers, Cleantech Open unites the public and private sectors in a shared vision for making America’s cleantech sector a thriving economic engine. For more information, visit us online or follow us on Twitter.

About NECEC

NECEC (Northeast Clean Energy Council & NECEC Institute) is the premier voice of businesses building a world-class clean energy hub in the Northeast, helping clean energy companies start, scale and succeed with our unique business, innovation, and policy leadership. NECEC is the Northeast regional affiliate for Cleantech Open, executing the Northeast accelerator and business plan competition and building the region’s innovation network with NECEC’s successor program for cleantech entrepreneurs, Cleantech Navigate Northeast. Learn more at www.necec.org.