It may not feel like spring yet, but Greentown Labs and its companies have been growing all winter long.
Though the cleantech incubator has been fairly quiet since it moved out to its spacious new spot in Somerville last August, Greentown Labs has been busy churning out cutting-edge companies – and reeling them in.
Filling Up
Back when Greentown Labs first made the transition from Fort Point to Somerville, the incubator’s management wasn’t sure what it would do with the superfluous chunk of space at the back of the 33, 000 square-foot building. Greentown has since found a few fruitful uses, however, for the extra 10,000 square-feet.
Newcomers Quantum Diamond Technologies, a magnetic sensing technology for drilling applications, and OpenWater Power, an MIT-founded aluminum power systems company, are in the process of building out customized workspaces.
Perhaps a bigger testament to Greentown Labs’ existence, though, is that one of the incubator’s long-time startups Dynamo Micropower is also moving into the space on account of a post-seed round expansion. Dynamo Micropower, which raised $30,000 in March 2013, develops low-cost micro-turbine engines.
Each of these companies have around five employees at the moment, and are hoping to grow this year.
Inside the Incubator
The incubator also had two big firsts in the past few months. Greentown hosted both its first demo day and internship fair, opening its doors to invite fellow cleantech fans, students, companies and investors in to check out what the environmentally friendly startups were cooking up. Making appearances at the demo day were the Mayor of Somerville Joseph Curtatone and Geoff Chapin, the CEO and founder of prominent local cleantech company, NextStep Living. As for the latter event, Greentown’s companies piqued the attention of over 200 students scoping out internships.
To meet the increasing interest the incubator received from its members and the cleantech community, Greentown plans to extend its shop wing. The expansion will make more workspace available to startups that need to build out models and test products.
Speaking of the startups, we circled up with three companies with the potential to make big impacts in 2014.
