Startups pitching
Alchemity
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Alchemity’s gas-to-liquids (GTL) technology will convert natural gas that might otherwise be flared or vented, a major contributor to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, to value-added chemical products. This membrane reactor technology is a platform to improve efficiency and reduce the cost and GHG emissions for numerous industrially important chemical reactions. By turning a waste gas source into a liquid commodity chemical, this technology can reduce industrial operations’ emissions. The integrated design provides a potential step change reduction in capital cost by combining catalysis and separation in a single unit, which also increases overall system energy efficiency and drastically reduces carbon emissions.
CURRENT HIGHLIGHTS: Shell GameChanger—a program supporting early-stage ideas with the potential to impact the future of energy—selected Alchemity as one of the winners of the Chemicals Decarbonization Challenge 2021 to receive development funding over two years to demonstrate a single-step catalytic membrane reactor. Alchemity was founded by Eric Wachsman, Director of the Maryland Energy Innovation Institute, and William L. Crentz, Centennial Chair in Energy Research at the University of Maryland.
Living Canopies
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Urban areas become heat islands that experience higher temperatures because of the infrastructure built around them, absorbing and remitting the sun's heat. Because of heat recycling, daytime temperatures in urban areas can be 1–7°F higher than in outlying areas. When the Sun shines on traditional umbrellas with nylon canopies, the canopy can heat up to 120°F or more. Living Canopies is a startup that is revolutionizing the way cities approach mobility. Their flagship product, the Cool Green Shelter for Transit Stops, is designed to address the growing need for public mobility options in cities and provide sustainable and equitable economic opportunities for all city residents. Living Canopies patent-protected design increases ridership, enhances customer experience, and reduces greenhouse gas emissions, making it a viable and attractive solution for cities and transit authorities. Their innovative shelters also incorporate solar power, a living green roof, device charging, and rainwater harvesting technologies. The company's 5-year goal is to have enough Green Shelters deployed in the market, which will result in a GHG reduction of 8000 MT-CO2/y, 5.8 million new rides per year, storage of 9.3 million liters of stormwater per year, production of 2.5 GWh of solar electricity per year and a total cooling reduction of 1.3 million cooling degree-days. Living Canopies products will revolutionize how cities approach mobility.
CURRENT HIGHLIGHTS: Living Canopies is working with several city governments to support a better living environment for their citizens. The company was founded by Dave Tilly, an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland specializing in Ecological Technology Design.
Ionic Devices
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The battery value chain is expected to grow by 10X from 2020 to 2030 to an annual revenue of $410 billion. The expected growth has catalyzed an unprecedented level of investment in battery manufacturers.
To ensure these risky investments into Battery manufacturing succeed, Ionic Devices is commercializing a novel methodology to produce lithium-ion batteries by leveraging semiconductor manufacturing methods. These batteries have energy and power metrics that are orders of magnitude
higher than conventional solid-state systems and are comparable to current market standards for liquid systems. Ionic Devices produce safe, solid batteries with 15-30X more energy at orders of magnitude higher power.
CURRENT HIGHLIGHTS: Thus far, 2 patents have been issued for this technology, and two other patent applications are in process. Keith Gregorczyk, Assistant Research Scientist of Materials Science and Engineering at the Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics at the University of Maryland, led the project. Ionic Devices works result from 15 years of DOE-funded research with a developed prototype.
BrightWave
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The market for algae is currently $20 billion, with an expected annual growth rate of nearly 11%. The current algae market is largely based on its use in animal and aquaculture feed, human food, organic farming, and fertilizer products. Because of this super plant's market potential, more capital is being invested in high-quality, low-cost algae production.
Even more exciting is algae's potential to fight food insecurity and climate change via applications such as CO2 removal, CO2 displacement in all types of manufacturing, and biofuel. BrightWave has developed and patented an innovative microalgae photobioreactor (PBR) that produces lab-quality biomass at an industrial scale with the smallest land footprint in the industry. The PBRs are internally illuminated and self-cleaning. They reduce downtime and contamination risk to practically zero. BrightWave's PBRs outperform existing algae cultivation platforms by a wide margin.
CURRENT HIGHLIGHTS: BrightWave's PBRs are being deployed into multiple industries – food, medical, wastewater treatment, and even a carbon-negative cement manufacturing venture. The PBRs were tested and certified at the University of Maryland's Marine and Environmental Technology Institute.
Meet the judges
Michael Campos - Investor, Energy Impact Partners
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Michael Campos - Investor, Energy Impact Partners
Dr. Michael Campos is an Investor at Energy Impact Partners (EIP). His focus is EIP’s Frontier Fund, which backs revolutionary technologies that accelerate the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. His areas of expertise include geothermal energy, chemistry, nanoscience, and climate adaptation.
Michael has over a decade of exp
Dr. Michael Campos is an Investor at Energy Impact Partners (EIP). His focus is EIP’s Frontier Fund, which backs revolutionary technologies that accelerate the transition to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. His areas of expertise include geothermal energy, chemistry, nanoscience, and climate adaptation.
Michael has over a decade of experience in climate technology, spanning venture capital, government funding, and basic and applied research. He started his career at the Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) in the U.S. Department of Energy.
Michael holds a Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in Chemistry from Columbia University, and a B.A. in Chemistry from Northwestern University. He has co-authored eight peer-reviewed articles and is a co-inventor on two patents. He also serves as a Strategic Advisor to Project InnerSpace, a nonprofit dedicated to enabling geothermal energy anywhere in the world, and writes Adapting, a newsletter about climate adaptation
Brett Clarke - Investment Analyst, VoLo Earth
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Michael Campos - Investor, Energy Impact Partners
Brett founded a nonprofit to increase voter participation in the 2020 election, and taught high school biology on the south side of Chicago through Teach For America. VoLo Earth address our planet’s climate crisis at its roots by providing first-in funding and hands-on leadership to early-stage climate tech companies. They strive to grow
Brett founded a nonprofit to increase voter participation in the 2020 election, and taught high school biology on the south side of Chicago through Teach For America. VoLo Earth address our planet’s climate crisis at its roots by providing first-in funding and hands-on leadership to early-stage climate tech companies. They strive to grow, propagate, and capitalize on climate solutions with an intent to deliver superior investment returns and quantifiable carbon benefit.
Andrew Gollach - Principal, HAX
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Andy is on the investment team at HAX where he manages the teams deal flow and due diligence processes. Post investment he works closely with teams to help them think through paths to de-risk their technology, develop scalable go-to-market strategies, and get additional funding. He has a particular interest in the Climate and Industrial
Andy is on the investment team at HAX where he manages the teams deal flow and due diligence processes. Post investment he works closely with teams to help them think through paths to de-risk their technology, develop scalable go-to-market strategies, and get additional funding. He has a particular interest in the Climate and Industrial companies that HAX invests in. Prior to HAX Andy spent nearly 10 years as an engineer on large capital projects all around the globe.
The first 5 years of his career were in the downstream Oil & Gas industry where he spent time in Asia, the Middle East and South America. In 2015 he transitioned over to a role at LanzaTech, a Climate Tech start-up that takes point source carbon emissions and up-converts them to a renewable fuel product. He spent 18 months in China working on the first commercial application of that technology where he saw the facility through initial site prep through first on-spec product.
After his time traveling the globe Andy attended Carnegie Mellon where he earned his MBA. During that time, he interned at ARPA-e and also launched his own Climate Tech venture. Andy also holds a BS in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Technological University. He is an avid follower of the Detroit sports teams and enjoys cooking in his free time.
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
Michael Ravenscroft - Managing Director, Maryland Momentum Fund, University System of Maryland
The Maryland Momentum Fund invests in the University System of Maryland's Entrepreneurs and Technology Ventures where Michael manages administration, operations, and investments at the University System of Maryland's Momentum Fund, a $16M Seed stage venture fund designed to catalyze innovations affiliated with alumni, faculty, students, and staff at the system's universities and colleges.
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