By Beth Zonis

2024 has been a year of leadership and growth. NECEC became ACT | The Alliance for Climate Transition. 41 startups graduated. Cleantech Open Northeast swept the national prizes! The National Grand Prize Winner is hydroGel, and the National Grand Prize Runner Up and People’s Choice is Arculus Solutions. The mid Atlantic states are now well represented. In the 2024 cohort MA, NJ, NY, and VA are the four most represented states. MD, NH and PA are tied for 5th place. The Northeast Regional Winners are Arculus Solutions, Green Spear, hydroGel, and Turnover Labs. Green Spear also won the Carbon Sequestration/CCUS Prize sponsored by the Sire Foundation. hydroGel won the Ag/Food/Land Us Prize sponsored by the Sire Foundation. HydroPhos Solutions won the Water Prize sponsored by Xylem. Turnover Labs is the Northeast People’s Choice Winner. $70,000 in cash prizes were awarded.

Nick Hill won the Lifetime Achievement Award. Nick is a huge asset to the program. Lead Mentors of the Year are Skelly Holmbeck and Tony Paradiso. Specialist Mentors of the Year are Jen Miret and Alyssa Patnode. Rookie Mentors of the Year are Hugo Naurais and Sheri Palazzo.

Cleantech Open Northeast alumni are making a difference. They’ve raised $2.03+ billion, created 7,800+ clean economy jobs, and generated $697+ million in revenue. 30 alumni startups have had an acquisition. 69% of the startups in the 2024 cohort have a founder who’s a woman, a member of an underserved community, or both. The 2024 cohort estimated their aggregate emissions reduction potential at 1.39 billion metric tons of CO2e (CO2 equivalent) when at scale. That’s equivalent to taking 330 million gas-powered cars off the road annually.

In 2024 we ran the first-ever Direct Air Capture (DAC) Academy, leveraging the support of the DOE DAC EPIC Pre-Commercialization Prize. Seven startups from across the US, Japan, and Mexico accelerated their companies through this custom program that included DAC-specific content to focus their business strategies. They are capturing CO2 and also converting it into useful products. Arbon, Carbon Power Mexico, Dair Capture, Jeevan Climate Solutions, and Planet Savers were awarded $10,000 each. Dair Capture is the People’s Choice Winner.

Thank you to Premier sponsor MassCEC, Platinum sponsor NYSERDA, and Gold sponsors NJEDA/CSIT and the Sire Foundation, who make so much of what we do possible! Congratulations to the Cleantech Open Northeast Class of 2024!

Read the Report Here!