In April of 2017, we rebranded to Elemental Excelerator to further embrace our systems-level approach to innovation and community transformation. Our expanded vision is to attract an exceptional community of innovators and entrepreneurs that are building businesses beyond utility grid-tied solutions, and creating systematic change through their work in agriculture, mobility, water, and beyond.
We made a change this year: Our Quick App now only takes companies 5-10 minutes to complete. We then do two things: 1) invite companies in our sweet spot to fill out a full application, and 2) send our partners (who are some of the largest energy and technology companies in the world) dealflow and intros to companies where they’re interested. This enables us to serve more companies and help accelerate growth beyond the 12-18 companies we’ll fund this year.
What else is new? We opened a new Equity and Access Track. We are looking to source the most creative and innovative solutions to improve low-income communities, particularly in California, and provide access to clean technology where there is currently a gap. We will invest up to $750,000 USD in companies applying technologies to low-income communities and connect them with our network throughout California.
How did we come up with this list? It’s a combination of two things: trends we’re tracking across the industries we care about, and specific requests from innovation from our Global Partners. As a growth accelerator program, we go out into the world and do customer discovery of our own. We meet with businesses, community groups, government agencies, farmers, regulators, and educators to learn about ongoing pain-points in a community, and source solutions that will lead to a cleaner, better quality of life.
For our next cohort, we are looking for companies that are building solutions and finding traction in the following categories:
Mobility
1. Heavy freight, shipping or aviation
2. Last mile mobility
3. Software (including for autonomous vehicles)
4. Transit
Water
5. Digitization
6. Efficiency
7. Freshwater
8. Wastewater
Agriculture
9. Automation
10. Food production / distribution efficiency
11. Irrigation
12. Supply chain
13. Meat / protein alternatives
Energy
14. Efficiency
15. Generation
16. Grid management technologies
17. Peer-to-peer trading / blockchain
18. Storage (particularly new business models and use cases)
19. Customer-facing solutions
20. Augmented Reality for training and safety
And Beyond
21. Access to clean technology for low income communities, particularly in California
22. Cybersecurity
23. Fintech
24. Fuels
25. IoT
26. Materials and plastics
27. Natural resource measurement
28. Recycling & waste management
29. Artificial intelligence
Are you building a world-changing solution? Take 5 minutes to fill out our Quick App. This will get you in the running for up to $1 million USD in funding, plus industry connections across California, Hawaii, and Asia Pacific.
You can also refer a company to us here, or reach out to our team with questions: apply@elementalexcelerator.com
We look forward to receiving your Quick App and working with you to change the world.
Ramsay Siegal
Head of Partnerships & Pipeline
Elemental Excelerator
Bonus: Check out our entire portfolio mapped out by sector below. Where could you fit in?
Sign up for our monthly newsletter
