Colorado Inno is celebrating the wins of 2023 and looking ahead to potential accomplishments in 2024 with our annual Startups to Watch. In total, we’ve selected 20 early-stage Colorado startups worth keeping an eye on in the year ahead.
Here are four focused on environmental solutions ranging from water management to suppressing fires.
Find the complete list of Startups to Watch in 2024 here.
Founded: 2017
Co-founders: Michael Key, Adam DeRosa and Eric Hagstrom
Headquarters: Loveland
While working on an organic hemp farm and in microbiology research, Michael Key realized the power of biostimulants, a substance or microorganism that when applied to a plant or seed can naturally enhance the crop’s nutrient intake, quality and yield. Through conversations with his friends and soon-to-be co-founders Adam DeRosa and Eric Hagstrom, they found a disconnect between what biostimulants could do and what was available on the market. Key, DeRosa and Hagstrom decided to address this gap in the market by launching Impello Biosciences, an agricultural biotech startup that focuses on the development of biostimulants to promote plant growth and quality.
Impello Biosciences researches, develops and commercializes biostimulant products, starting with microbial constortia, or teams of microbes that work together. The startup’s goal is to help farmers and growers across all crop types produce more with less water and fewer chemicals.
Before Impello, DeRosa worked in business development and tech, and Hagstrom worked in the investments and golf industries. Impello added teammates with experience in various crop research and markets last year.
In 2023, the startup’s biofungicide product was selected for field trials by Platform10, a global specialty crop biologicals accelerator. It also raised a Series A round and recently partnered with Colorado State University’s Horticulture Center to bring this career path to students.
This year, Impello will take its products into specialty crop industries in Arizona, California and Florida and expand its market reach from the cannabis and controlled environment agriculture industries into the field-grown produce realm.
“Our plan since founding the company has been to introduce our biotechnologies to as many crop markets as possible so that we could make the biggest impact in our mission to accelerate the evolution of agriculture, so 2024 is a critical year for us and a long time in the making,” Key said. “When we couple that with our manufacturing expansion and our ever-growing team, it’s clear that 2024 is going to be an exciting year.”
Founded: 2019
Co-founders: Brad Alcorn and Devin Callahan
Headquarters: Wheat Ridge
Brad Alcorn and Devin Callahan have a deep-rooted passion for water conservation. The two worked together for several years at Rachio, a smart irrigation company in Denver. When Alcorn left in 2018, he turned his focus to water conservation and leak detection in an untapped and underserved market — commercial buildings. After interviews with multi-family property owners, Alcorn determined the industry’s biggest challenge was relying on a single water meter regardless of the building’s size. This often led to unexplained high water bills, Alcorn said.
He and Callahan joined forces once again to launch SimpleSUB Water in 2019. The startup developed Z1 Flow Meter, an easy-to-install unit that sits on top of a water pipe to measure water flow. The Z1 Flow Meter, in addition to the startup’s cloud-based software, serves as a non-invasive, real-time data monitoring solution for multi-unit properties to control and manage water usage and costs. With SimpleSUB Water, users can also create unit-level cost reports.
“We were inspired to create a solution that wasn’t just effective but also easy to install and scalable,” Alcorn said. “By championing transparency and conservation, SimpleSUB Water is paving the way for sustainable water use and billing practices in shared living and commercial spaces.”
This solution comes as water supply across the U.S. is shrinking, including at large bodies of water such as the Colorado River, which serves seven states.
SimpleSUB Water proved its concept market demand in 2023 after securing its first major partnership in the commercial and municipal water management sector and receiving the Colorado Advanced Industries Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grant from OEDIT. The startup said it is poised for significant growth and innovation in the year ahead. It plans to expand its team and enhance its product.
Founded: 2021
Co-founders: Steve Wolf, Andy Amalfitano, Dan Eamon and Alanna Reed
Headquarters: Boulder
Steve Wolf has been a special effects coordinator for Hollywood movies and television shows for the past 30 years. He used science to make sure the special effects — be it a fire or blowing objects up — were done safely. While working on “The Firm” with Tom Cruise, the director told Wolf he didn’t need to put the fire out but that he had to move it so filming could continue. That was a lightbulb moment for Wolf; he questioned the possibility of relocating a fire by moving the burning fuel. In this instance, he used a large leaf blower to move the burning leaves.
Wolf realized the technology used to make huge winds, downpouring rain and ranging fires in Hollywood movies could be modified to make what he calls a “hurricane on wheels” to push back and put out wildfires.
This led to the launch of Team Wildfire, a startup developing new technologies to suppress wildfires. The startup is creating software that uses AI to analyze a fire’s dynamics and find its most vulnerable point to attack. It’s also building a vehicle with four jet engines and 800 misting nozzles that can blow up to 10,000 gallons of water per minute. This product, called Air Striker, is intended to move a fire back by relocating its burning fuel to already burned areas, thus suppressing the fire faster than what’s done now with shovels and chainsaws.
“As wildfires take the world in their deadly grip, powerful new technologies will be needed to tame them,” Wolf said. “While wildfire data companies are plentiful, only a handful of companies in the world are building technology to actually put out fires.”
Team Wildfire closed a $3.7 million seed round in 2023, hired engineers and built and tested three minimum viable product variants. The startup also secured a manufacturing contractor to build its Air Strikers. In the near future, Team Wildfire plans to build and test a full-size MVP and raise a Series A round.
Founded: July 2019
Co-founders: Andrew Antonio and Jared Leidich
Headquarters: Denver
Andrew Antonio and Jared Leidich have big dreams for their startup Urban Sky. They are building an economy in the stratosphere, starting with capturing images of Earth.
Rather than capturing images of the planet from a drone or satellite, the startup uses a reusable microballoon that operates above commercial airspace and operates in the middle ground, also known as the stratosphere. Attached to the balloon is an imaging payload, designed by Urban Sky, that can capture 10-centimeter resolution images.
Capturing images to map Earth is just the beginning for Urban Sky. Antonio envisions the company becoming the SpaceX of the stratosphere. He said Urban Sky is building the stratospheric satellite layer, but its technology can take on any payload a customer might want.
Urban Sky traditionally works with oil and gas and utility customers but offers its services to anyone who wants high-resolution aerial images. Its success thus far led to a nearly $10.75 million Series A round in 2023. The startup has also scaled its team from 15 people to about 22 with plans to have 30 employees by mid-2024.
The startup also proved its model of “launch many to image very broad areas” by deploying six balloons at once for a project with an energy business that wanted to survey its distributed assets and environmental conditions.
Next, Urban Sky plans to expand into Texas, California, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma. Urban Sky currently operates in Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. The startup’s R&D team is also working to improve its data products to offer higher resolution sensors, increase the reusability rate of its balloons and test ways to fly its microballoons for longer.
