Energia Ventures Accelerator To Showcase International Cohort
FREDERICTON – After adapting their program to online learning, the Energia Ventures accelerator program out of UNB will be showcasing their cohort next week.
The cohort consists of five companies from around the world – one based in the U.K., one in India, and three in Canada – each from the clean tech, green tech, and energy sectors.
“We did a lot of adapting in order to run the program virtually,” said Inball Lev, program manager of Energia Ventures. “We didn’t want to cancel this year’s cohort so instead of canceling, we just adapted to a model that is more suited to online.”
Usually, cohorts come in from across the world and settle down in Fredericton for the duration of the 12-week program, but despite the distance, Lev said the participants were engaged and ready to learn how to grow their companies.
“When companies come in from across the world, their main focus is the program, but these guys are doing the program while they run their companies back home and have their daily routine,” said Lev. “We didn’t see any troubles in engagement even though it was virtual. Our biggest takeaway was that even through the pandemic, companies remained engaged.”
Energia Ventures remains an in-demand accelerator. Lev said there were over 200 applicants to this year’s cohort, but they could only accept five.
“We had to turn down a lot of companies and a lot of them are really really good,” she said.
Lev said they hope to expand to bring in an additional cohort every year. Currently, Energia Ventures hosts one cohort for their 12-week accelerator program annually.
“I think the main reason people join our program is because of our good reputation in terms of programming,” she said. “I think the fact that we are university based and we have access to a lot of resources within the university. That draws in most of the companies to apply.”
The showcase will feature the following companies:
- envoPAP – envoPAP creates sustainable packaging and paper that’s kind to the planet. By using renewable sources—agricultural waste instead of wood—their production has a much smaller environmental footprint than traditional packaging, and still delivers an industry-leading product.
- Paragon – Paragon manufactures 4-seat Electric Vehicle Hypercars. Their vehicles offer eco-friendly High-performance solutions for car aficionados, professional athletes, and other high net worth individuals.
- Solar Steam – SolarSteam’s system 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.
- Solavio Labs – develop innovative technologies and engineering solutions for improving the performance of solar power plants. Made in India, they design and manufacture retrofittable Modular Autonomous Solar Panel Cleaning Robots (Patented Technology) for both rooftop and ground mount installations to suit all types of tilt, environment, & mounting structure.
- TROES Corp.– Based on LiFePO4 technology, TROES develops, designs, manufactures and delivers safer, longer-lasting, cloud-based energy storage systems that integrate TROES’ proprietary IoT and AI-based modular Battery Packs and Battery Management Systems (BMS).
The showcase will take place Wednesday, December 16 from 1:00-3:00pm AST on the Energia Ventures Facebook page.
Liam Floyd is a reporter for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].