New Program, Same Commitment to Students: CET’s New University Accelerator
Every business idea starts somewhere. The founders of NuMat Technologies were participating in NUvention — the interdisciplinary innovation class at Northwestern and decided to form their company in order to compete in Clean Energy Trust’s student business plan competition. The company develops nanoporous materials that offer fundamental performance improvements in the gas storage and separation industries. NuMat won that competition in 2012, Clean Energy Trust invested in the company in 2015, and since then, they have gone on to raise more than $20 million and are the first company in the world to bring their nanoporous materials to market.
We’re very proud of our work supporting and accelerating businesses like NuMat. Like a number of the companies we work with, the business spun out of a research university and students played an important role in the formation of the business. We’ve been supporting student cleantech startups for nearly a decade, by managing accelerator programs and engaging with classes and student groups on campuses across the region. It is one of the major ways we support the cleantech innovation ecosystem in the Midwest, in addition to our seed investments.
For most of the past decade, Clean Energy Trust operated the Cleantech University Prize program. While the program provided support to dozens of companies and taught many entrepreneurship skills, we decided to update the structure of our student support programming and introduce a new program — after all — we’re learning, too.
Last month, we launched the CET University Accelerator program. This new program incorporates a number of things we’ve learned while providing support programming to student teams related to engagement, summer programming, flexibility, and industry connectivity.
Regular Check-Ins
We’ve found that frequent ongoing engagement with student teams helps them learn, iron out problems, and make progress. These regular check-ins can help provide just a bit of structure to motivate and support student teams, without being overly burdensome.
Remote, Summer Programming
In the past, we scheduled our student programming to align with the academic calendar. While there are benefits to this approach, one drawback is that some important activities were happening when the students were the busiest. Further, in contrast to a decade ago, many universities have robust startup accelerators or pitch competitions that already provide a good framework for action during the school year. By shifting our programming to the summer, we’re able to start working with teams during a period where they typically do not have support programming available to them. Plus, we can work and collaborate with them just as they have made strides in their on-campus programs.
Flexible Support
Students are busy, regardless of whether they’re on campus or at a summer job or internship. In addition, different student businesses may be at different levels of maturity and have different needs. Flexibility is always important in working with students. Instead of including detailed participation requirements, the CET University Accelerator program tailors our approach to the needs and availability of each team.
Industry Mentors
One item that we are not changing is — our industry mentors. We’ve found that students receive a lot of value from their connections with relevant industry experts, both by hearing their perspective and also the potential for other connections with which the companies can conduct additional customer discovery.
Between maximizing engagement, aligning schedules, increasing flexibility, and maintaining industry connectivity, we think the CET University Accelerator is going to be a great fit for student cleantech businesses.
We’re excited to support the next NuMat’s of the world — innovative, student-run businesses who are addressing our energy and climate challenges. If that might be you, be sure to apply to the CET University Accelerator by April 15, 2020.
Learn more about the program at this link.
