New York, NY (November 16, 2021) — The Clean Fight New York, a not-for-profit climate-tech accelerator supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and New Energy Nexus, today announced its second cohort of startups working to decarbonize and electrify the mass of New York’s non- luxury residential and commercial buildings including below market rate, affordable housing.
As building infrastructure generates 30 percent of New York State’s carbon emissions and 70 percent of New York City’s, the startups selected are creating the innovative technologies and services to enable the deep decarbonization of buildings through electrification, advanced efficiency, demand flexibility and resilience. By zeroing in on older, Class B and C buildings, these startups are staged to generate equitable climate impacts while providing health, comfort, and savings benefits to frontline and underserved communities most impacted by the climate crisis.
“The good news is many of the solutions needed to decarbonize New York’s buildings already exist. Now we must work with urgency to help them scale,” said Kate Frucher, Managing Director of The Clean Fight. “We believe that this cohort has the technologies and capabilities to enhance the sustainability, adaptability, and affordability of real estate infrastructure, and are thrilled to provide these startups with the resources to properly scale their solutions.”
This second cohort of companies comes as the public and private sectors are investing billions of dollars in climate tech, and New York State and New York City are evaluating how to efficiently rebuild economic and social infrastructure to foster a greener, healthier, and more equitable future for all.
The complete list of Cohort 2 companies include:
- Aeroseal: This next-generation sealant injects micro-particles into leaks as small as a human hair, to eliminate drafts in homes. Solving air leakage not only reduces one of the largest causes of energy waste in homes, but delivers comfort, healthy air and savings.
- Allume Energy: The world’s only behind-the-meter hardware designed to enable multi-family homes to share solar from a single rooftop system, allowing this underserved segment to access the financial and environmental benefits of solar for the first time.
- CleanFiber: A high-performance insulation made from recycled cardboard, providing superior performance at a lower cost. It can eliminate hundreds of millions of annual carbon emissions by improving efficiency, reducing the energy required to produce insulation and by directly sequestering carbon.
- Flair: An IoT-building company transforming traditional residential HVACs to increase comfort, reduce energy usage and enable the path to hybrid and full electrification via grid-interactive controls and vents.
- Indow: Custom window inserts that simply press inside existing frames, reducing the massive energy loss from windows and reducing noise at a fraction of the often-prohibitive cost of window replacement.
- Pearl Certification: Proprietary certification and marketplace platform that incentivizes homeowners to make efficiency, renewable energy and resilience upgrades due to the proven increase to home value that comes with certification.
- Runwise: A low-cost, fast-to-install monitoring and control software platform, using inside temperatures, weather predictions and machine learning to remotely and seamlessly adjust a building’s energy and carbon output.
- SWTCH Energy: Electric vehicle charging-as-a-service and DER integration for multi-family buildings, reducing financial barriers and enabling more equitable access to charging
- Urban Electric Power: Rechargeable zinc-based battery energy storage system for power resiliency and demand management in residential, commercial, grid- scale and microgrid applications. UEP’s patented zinc batteries are exceptionally safe and ideal for use in buildings in dense urban settings
Launched in 2020, The Clean Fight is on a mission to find the most promising growth- stage clean energy startups to quickly scale in New York. The inaugural cohort of nine companies, which graduated in April 2021, has already made significant traction in New York, including: receiving $900,000 in grant funding from The Clean Fight; raising over $100 million in follow-on funding (120X grant funds administered); 14 signed contracts or advanced discussions with partners in the state, along with two-thirds of the companies having newly established or expanded their base in New York State.
Each of the selected companies is eligible for a range of tailored benefits, including up to $250,000 per company in non-dilutive grants, hands-on matchmaking with industry-leading customer and capital partners, bespoke support services worth $25,000 per company, and expert insight into navigating the New York State market.
John Lochner, NYSERDA Vice President of Innovation said, “Decarbonization of New York’s diverse building stock will require a systems approach to innovation to scale and accelerate retrofits at a substantially faster pace. The Clean Fight provides a platform to support and coordinate building retrofit decision makers, solution providers, and policy makers in a broader conversation to ensure we develop a pathway for and support the best solutions to meet our climate and clean energy goals.”
Throughout the duration of the 6-month program, the nine companies will be working with The Clean Fight’s world-class customer and capital partners. On the cutting-edge of equitable building decarbonization, The Clean Fight’s customer partners are already implementing innovative and scalable solutions to bring New York State’s buildings to net zero, while creating replicable blueprints for the rest of the market to follow. This year’s investment and financing partners’ unrivaled leadership in the field is enabling startups to grow through direct investment, but also critically, to speed adoption of their solutions through project financing and lending.
Customer partners include Beam Living, Bright Power, Brooklyn Navy Yard, Carrier, City of Ithaca, Con Edison, Fairstead, Handel Architects, JOE NYC, L+M, RiseBoro, Steven Winter Associates with capital partners Bayview PACE, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Broadscale, Camber Creek, Community Preservation Corporation, Energy Impact Partners, Fifth Wall, Generate Capital, MetaProp, NYCEEC, Obvious Ventures, Perl Street. NYC Housing Partnership is a strategic partner.
To keep up with The Clean Fight and learn more about these startups, visit thecleanfight.com/cohort.
