Inventors and Founders

MEIA supports "Clean Energy Technologies," which broadly describes products and/or services that have positive environmental impacts by reducing energy use or causing the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. We focus on innovation that occurs in academic or institutional labs located in the State of Maryland. 

MEIA offers three programs - Pre-Accelerator, Launchpad, and Accelerator.  Each program has unique requirements and offers specific services to participants. While the Pre-Accelerator and Launchpad will remain limited to university or federal lab-affiliated inventors, the new Accelerator program may accept any Maryland-based company. Startups will have the opportunity to participate in all three programs to maximize support.

Inventors who want to commercialize their technologies run into four difficult problems:

1. Lack of time to work on the company; 
2. Difficulty finding co-founders; 
3. Difficulty finding firms and people to perform business creation activities;
4. Connections with industry and capital sources.

MEIA's programs tackle each of these issues head on. 

MEIA's key performance metric is whether your Maryland-based company can attract 3rd party capital, create jobs, and help solve Maryland's climate and energy issues.  MEIA will do everything it can to help you succeed.