The Product Development and Small Business Incubator Fund (PDSBI) offers long-term, asset-backed loans to product development companies and small business incubators/accelerators located in Texas. The loans finance the development and production of new or improved products or the stimulations of new or existing small businesses in Texas. The program targets those businesses which may be unable to obtain full financing or financing on workable terms in traditional capital markets.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) has launched Phase 2 of the Solar Desalination Prize.

This competition strives to help achieve the goals of the Water Security Grand Challenge. SETO is seeking ideas that will accelerate the development of systems that use low-cost solar-thermal energy to produce clean water from very-high-salinity water, like water produced from oil and gas extraction. The clean water produced can be used in municipal, agricultural, and industrial applications.

Contest 1, Innovation, is open to the public. Quarterfinalists will be announced in September 2021 and receive $50,000 each. Contest winners will then continue to the next phases of the challenge and have the opportunity to win millions of dollars over the competition.

Shell UK has announced a new program for energy start-ups – Shell StartUp Engine UK – in partnership with Unreasonable Group (Unreasonable). The program focuses on scale and growth-stage start-ups that are best placed to accelerate a fair and just energy transition, improve access to energy and help consumers make smarter energy choices. CEOs of these start-ups will benefit from high-profile mentorship, access to potential investors and partners, and being part of the Shell and Unreasonable start-up communities.

If you have an idea that has the potential to have a significant positive impact across one or several of the SDGs while being financially successful, apply here to build your company with Satgana. Satgana’s goal is to co-create companies from scratch, alongside extraordinary entrepreneurs. It offers financial, operational, and organizational support for ventures.

On Deck’s Climate Tech Fellowship is a 10-week program for deep experts to exchange ideas, accelerate each other’s careers, and build impactful climate tech startups. The program is gathering a group of highly technical innovators working on new climate technologies alongside seasoned entrepreneurs, regulatory experts, and investors. 

The COVID-19 crisis is an especially challenging time for small business owners. In an effort to better help businesses navigate this crisis, the CEBN has compiled a list of financial relief resources. We will continue to update the list of resources as new information becomes available. Please send any additional relevant resources to CEBN staff should you be aware of any.

Each year, this accelerator finds 15-20 companies that best fit their mission and fund each company up to $1 million to improve systems that impact people’s lives: energy, water, food & agriculture, mobility, and the circular economy.

Each year Women Founders Network creates a unique opportunity for Female Founders. What makes their pitch competition different than other fast pitch competitions is the valuable leadership and in-kind sponsorships that offered as part of the program. This individualized attention allows the top women entrepreneurs to become pitch-ready in a way that sharpens their plans to scale their companies and makes their business more appealing to Angel and VC investors.

An enduring challenge to ARPA-E’s mission is that even technologies that achieve substantial technical advancement under ARPA-E support are at risk of being stranded in their development path once ARPA-E funding ends (averaging $2.5M over three years).

The SCALEUP FOA builds upon ARPA-E-funded technologies by scaling the most promising. Stranding promising ARPA-E-funded technologies in their development pathways leaves substantial intellectual property developed with American taxpayer dollars vulnerable to adoption by foreign competitors, who can and do capture it for continued development – and economic benefit – overseas. This harms national competitiveness, as U.S. industries often lose the lead on the development, scaling, and manufacturing of technologies necessary to compete in rapidly evolving global energy markets. These scaling energy technology projects will meet ARPA-E’s statutory direction to achieve the above goals by “ accelerating transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty”.^[2]

• Facilitate networking between members, advisors and their external stakeholders;
• Create new business opportunities for members;
• Share awareness of, and access to, sources of funding;
• Share knowledge and best practices about business and impact
• Create new visibility opportunities for members, locally and internationally.