Following a successful inaugural campaign last year, Techstars announced the second class of its Denver-based Sustainability Accelerator in partnership with The Nature Conservancy on Monday.
The ten startup class brings companies from across the U.S. and Mexico to Denver to address key issues impacting sustainability worldwide. Specifically, the companies are aligned with The Nature Conservancy’s core focus of tackling climate change, providing food and water sustainably, building healthy cities and protecting our land and water.
"Rooted in hope, urgency, and action, these venture scale companies are enabling a world where people and nature can thrive together," wrote Techstars Sustainability Accelerator managing director Zach Nies in a blog post.
As part of the 90-day accelerator, each company is offered a $100,000 convertible note. Techstars contributes $20,000, which is commonly used as a stipend to support living expenses during the program, and in return receives 6 percent common stock from each company.
However, in 2014, Techstars introduced an "equity back guarantee," allowing graduate companies to lower or eliminate the accelerator’s equity position if the startup is unhappy with the value it received.
Take a look below at the 10 companies accepted into the 2019 Techstars Sustainability Accelerator:
Cities and counties spend billions annually trying to comply with Clean Water Act, while the quality of urban waterways continue to decline. 2NDNATURE has developed the first enterprise cloud stormwater management and compliance platform.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKjokWH8rRg&feature=youtu.be
AQUAOSO is building a water resilient future through advanced water risk analytics. They help financial institutions, insurers, investors, corporations and policy makers identify, understand, monitor and mitigate water risk through their software platform.
Bext360 provides comprehensive and measurable accountability for supply chains like coffee, seafood, timber, minerals, cotton and palm oil. The SaaS platform provides a traceable fingerprint from producer to consumer using blockchain and sustainability measurements.
Gybe
As the health and quality of freshwater basins, rivers, estuaries and coastal areas come under increased pressure due to human activity and climate change, Gybe uses satellite imagery and proprietary ground-based hardware to transform the management, conservation and restoration of aquatic ecosystems.
With Mammoth's software, TAPP H2O, agricultural producers can easily track and trade water allocations, submit regulatory compliance documentation and quantify conservation practices.
The company uses advanced biotechnology and IoT to convert the excess nutrients in agricultural runoff into a high-quality protein that can feed livestock.
Over 300 million tons of carbon is lost annually as waste from food, forestry and agriculture. mobius is converting this waste into value using green chemistry and biology, creating biodegradable plastics and platform chemicals for applications in agriculture and beyond.
Nori is a marketplace for reversing climate change. They enable companies to pay for removing CO2 from the atmosphere through more sustainable farming practices that improve soil conditions and ensure we can still grow food in 50 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKv5rWtV-vI
Propagate Ventures is an agroforestry investment platform focused on bridging the capital and operational needs to integrate tree crops into farmland. Their agroforestry analytics and project development tools support farmers in the design, implementation and management of tree-crop systems to increase farm profitability and ecological capacity.
Regen Network is a digital platform that connects farmers, brands and institutions to make regenerative ecological agreements based on verifiable data so that we can rapidly accelerate the adoption of regenerative agriculture and conservation, and reverse global climate change.
