5 Eco-Friendly Companies Show Off Their Work At Energia Ventures Showcase
FREDERICTON – Following a 12-week accelerator program, UNB’s Energia Ventures showcased its latest cohort of entrepreneurs on Wednesday, five companies from around the world – one based in the U.K., one in India, and three in Canada – from the cleantech, green tech, and energy sectors.
“In the last three months, the companies have worked intensively with mentors, instructors, and staff to bring us to today. The outcome of this process is a company ready for investment,” said Inball Lev, the program manager of Energia Ventures during the showcase.
Over the course of the program, the companies learned about a range of useful skills to carry forward including sales, competitive intelligence, digital marketing, and traditional marketing.
“The growth we have seen from the five companies and the global impact they want to make – to make the world greener, more environmentally friendly, and more secure – has been very meaningful and it has touched our hearts to see what they are trying to do and how passionate they are about making the change and making meaning in our world,” said Dhirendra Shukla, the Dr. J Herbert Smith ACOA Chair at UNB during the showcase.
Related: Energia Ventures Accelerator To Showcase International Cohort
SolarSteam is a Calgary-based company with a system that uses solar collectors to concentrate sunlight in order to heat water and generate steam. A transparent membrane enclosure increases efficiency by keeping the collectors clean and reduces capital cost by allowing for lightweight collectors that don’t require rigid foundations and expensive controls.
“The problem we are addressing is the high cost and emissions of process heat. We develop concentrated solar thermal systems and our customers adopt them in order to improve productivity,” said Apostol Radev, CEO of SolarSteam during the presentation.
From the United Kingdom, envoPAP creates sustainable packaging and paper that is kind to the planet. Their production has a much smaller environmental footprint than traditional packaging.
“Since its inception in 2015, envoPAP has generated £8 million in revenue, saved over 760,000 trees, and we are present in 50 countries,” said Ghida Elkazzi, Product Executive at envoPAP.
The company has partnered with McDonald’s, Lego, Cheeky Panda, L’Oreal and many more businesses to provide food packaging materials, product packaging, printing paper, envelopes, flower packaging, labels, and more paper products.
By using renewable sources such as agricultural waste instead of wood, their production has a much smaller environmental footprint than traditional packaging and still delivers an industry-leading product.
Paragon is a company based out of Montreal that manufactures four-seat Electric Vehicle Hypercars. Their vehicles offer eco-friendly high-performance solutions for car aficionados, professional athletes, and other high net worth individuals. They are eco-friendly, more cost-effective, and offer plenty of legroom.
“We believe we can open up and expand the market with a more financially sound alternative high-performing supercar that offers the convenience and practicality of a sedan, that’s not capped by mileage, and rather gives freedom and peace of mind to the driver,” said Mike Kakogiannakis, founder and CEO of Paragon during his presentation.
TROES Corp. develops, designs, delivers, and manufactures safe, long-lasting cloud-based energy storage systems that integrate TROES’ proprietary IoT and AI-based modular battery packs and Battery Management Systems. It is based on LiFePO4 technology.
“Power from various power sources can be stored into our battery energy storage system. When it’s the proper time, the power releases and the controller allows for the energy to be released as planned to bring different benefits with pre-programmed logics for each application,” said Vienna Zhou, Founder and CEO of the Ontario-based company.
Zhou says they are currently going after the North American market, which is valued at $10-billion.
Solavio Labs is an India-based company on a mission to develop innovative technologies and engineering solutions for improving the performance of solar power plants. One of those projects is a robot intended to clean solar panels.
“Inspired by the simple flow-cleaning Roomba that’s made its way into most households, we came up with the solution of autonomous robots to clean solar panels faster and more efficiently,” said Suraj Mohan, co-founder of Solavio.
They design and manufacture their robots for both rooftop and ground mount installations to suit all types of tilt, environment, & mounting structures. They can be retrofitted for any solar panel.
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, the Energia Ventures cohort presented on Facebook Live from various locations across the world.
Liam Floyd is a reporter for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].