Critical Minerals

Caltech’s Rocket Fund

Caltech’s Rocket Fund is a member supported granting pool that helps academic and garage innovators turn their technologies into commercial realities through financial support, entrepreneurial mentoring and education. In addition to grant, awardee will receive:

  • Opportunity to work with utilities and access further funding
  • Introductions to experts in product development, scale up and manufacturing
  • Access to legal advice covering corporate structure and IP
  • Channel relationships with IN2 Wells Fargo, Shell GameChanger for securing voucher funding covering lab testing facilities and technical expertise
  • Partnering opportunities with the Electric Power Research Institute on million dollar+ grants, finding lab testing facilities, and technical expertise
  • Introductions to early stage investors
  • NEW: Introductions to accelerator programs offered by Aditya Birla and Halliburton Labs
  • Connections to incubators and accelerator programs in California
READ MORE

Fourth Revolution Awards (Illinois)

The Fourth Revolution Awards acknowledges outstanding manufacturing-based startups, community organizations, and hardtech entrepreneurs in the region. Winners will receive two 3-Month shared workspace memberships at mHUB, local and national recognition, personalized coffee chat/meeting.

READ MORE

TECHCONNECT WORLD INNOVATION CHALLENGE

Launch your electrifying journey into the future of innovation! Join the world’s largest multi-sector commercialization program for emerging deep technologies. Pitch your groundbreaking innovations and connect with top-tier corporate, investment, military and federal leaders for partnering, licensing and investment opportunities. Whether you’re a startup, university TTO, federal lab, or federal awardee, seize the moment. Submit your commercially viable innovation now and connect with the largest gathering of tech-scouts and funding offices worldwide. Submit today!

READ MORE

BUILDING EPSCOR-STATE/NATIONAL LABORATORY PARTNERSHIPS

DOE’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program hereby announces its interest in receiving applications for Building EPSCoR-State/DOE-National Laboratory Partnerships. These partnerships advance the understanding of the physical world by supporting fundamental, early-stage energy research collaborations with DOE National Laboratories. Participation by undergraduate students, graduate students, or postdoctoral fellows is required. Early career faculty from EPSCoR jurisdictions are encouraged to apply, and utilization of DOE user facilities is encouraged.

READ MORE

Department of Energy SBIR/STTR FY2024 Phase 1 Release 2

Congress established the Small Business Innovation Research / Technology Transfer (SBIR and STTR) programs to support scientific excellence and technological innovation through the investment of Federal research funds in critical American priorities to build a strong national economy.  Federal agencies with large research and development budgets set aside a small fraction of their funding for competitions among small businesses only. Small businesses that win awards in these R&D programs keep the rights to any technology developed and are encouraged to commercialize the technology. DOE’s Phase 1 Release 2 includes funding for topics at the Offices of:

  • Electricity
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
  • Cybersecurity, Energy Security, and Emergency Response
  • Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation R&D
  • Fossil Energy and Carbon Management
  • Nuclear Energy
READ MORE

Critical Materials Accelerator

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) issued a funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for up to $10 million of its base funding to fund Critical Materials Accelerator R&D projects. Projects funded under this FOA will prototype and mature technologies or processes to address critical material challenges in high impact areas. The Critical Materials Accelerator will be one of several pathways developed through the Critical Materials Collaborative (CMC) to de-risk innovation and mature technology development in partnership with industry. This FOA solicits proposals that continue advancing science and technology innovation and de-risking technologies that build and transform domestic critical material supply chains examined through the CMA.

READ MORE

FY24 Core Laboratory Infrastructure for Market Readiness (CLIMR) Lab Call

This lab call represents the combined effort of fourteen different U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) program offices and the Office of Technology Transitions (OTT). This solicitation offers an opportunity for private industry to partner with DOE’s National Labs to advance energy-related National Lab-developed technology toward commercialization and to reduce the barriers to commercializing lab-developed energy-related technologies and IP. The intent is to increase the volume and speed to which energy-related lab-developed technologies make it to market from an improved lab commercialization ecosystem.

READ MORE

ACCEL – Advancing Climatetech and Clean Energy Leaders

For Year 2 of the ACCEL program, we’re seeking applications from innovative startups at TRL 1-4 with founding and executive teams that are primarily made up of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders who are developing climate solutions for the electricity, transportation, buildings, manufacturing, agriculture, and resiliency + adaptation sectors.

This year-long program combines acceleration with a curated curriculum, incubation through a Greentown Labs membership, and extensive mentorship from Greentown and Browning the Green Space (BGS)’s networks of industry experts. Greentown and BGS know the climatetech industry must change the status quo to equitably position you to lead startups that will address climate change, support the development of diverse workforces, and fiercely advocate for the deployment of clean technologies in historically underserved communities.

READ MORE

Scale For ClimateTech (New York)

Are you a Climate Tech innovator looking to commercialize your hardware product? Apply to the 2023-2024 Scale For ClimateTech (S4C) program. Through the S4C program, supported by NYSERDA, and administered by SecondMuse and NextCorps, innovators receive dedicated support throughout their manufacturing process in order to gain confidence in their path to market and scale up production to meet demand. Innovators receive dedicated support throughout their manufacturing process in order to gain confidence in their path to market and scale up production to meet demand

READ MORE

NextEra Energy Investments, LLC – 2024 Seed Competition

NextEra Energy Investments, LLC (NEI), an indirect and wholly owned subsidiary of NextEra Energy, Inc., is holding a Seed Competition. Startups have the potential to receive up to a $500,000 seed capital investment, with such investment documentation terms to be negotiated between the potential winner and NEI. The Seed Competition is intended for entrepreneurs solving critical problems within Cybersecurity, Data & AI, Decarbonization and Energy Transition who want to work with NextEra and its subsidiaries to innovate for a better tomorrow.

READ MORE

Venture Access Founder Fellowship (NYC)

A signature program of NYCEDC’s Venture Access NYC initiative, the Founder Fellowship is designed to improve access to capital and networks for underrepresented founders across all tech-enabled sectors. Each year, the Founder Fellowship supports a diverse community of New York City tech startup founder teams with much-needed access to resources and networks to help them grow their companies. Selected teams are placed in Founder Fellow cohorts led by NYCEDC’s program operators. All Fellow teams receive unique value and offerings including:

  • Individualized work plans to identify key needs and interests
  • Cohort convenings to discuss challenges and receive business administration support
  • Connections to capital providers and potential collaborators
  • Access to mentors and advisor network
READ MORE

Spurring Projects to Advance Energy Research and Knowledge Swiftly (SPARKS)

The SPARKS program—short for Spurring Projects to Advance energy Research and Knowledge Swiftly—provides a rolling opportunity for the rapid support of early-stage applied research to explore innovative new concepts with the potential for transformational and disruptive changes in energy technology. SPARKS awards are intended to be flexible and may take the form of analyses or exploratory research that provides ARPA-E with useful information for the subsequent development of focused technology programs. Awards under the SPARKS program may also support proof-of-concept research to develop a unique technology concept, either in an area not currently supported by the agency or as a potential enhancement to an ongoing focused technology program. The broad objective of SPARKS is to identify disruptive concepts in energy-related technologies that challenge the status quo and represent a leap beyond today’s technologies. An innovative concept alone is not enough; the idea must also have the potential to be impactful—meaning that, if successful, it represents a fundamentally new paradigm in energy technology with the potential to make a significant impact on ARPA-E’s mission areas.

READ MORE