The $125,000 AgLaunch received from the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) — a $50 million collaboration between the Wells Fargo Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory — isn’t the largest grant it’s received.
But for Pete Nelson, executive director of the Memphis-based AgTech startup supporter, it’s one of the most gratifying.
“We feel validated with this particular one,” he told MBJ. “It’s kind of a flag to rally around.”
On Feb. 24, IN2 announced the latest winners of its Channel Partner Awards, grants doled out twice a year to members of its network of cleantech accelerator and incubator programs in the U.S.
The goal is to address gaps in the cleantech ecosystem, and eliminate barriers startups in the sector face. This go-round, with $350,000 in total funding on the table, IN2 requested proposals that would provide entrepreneurial opportunities for historically underrepresented individuals in the industry.
Besides AgLaunch, winners included the Centrepolis Accelerator, based in Michigan; Elemental Excelerator, based in Hawaii and California; and Innovation Corridor, based in Colorado.
AgLaunch will use the funds to continue its 48-Hour Launch program, which encourages underrepresented high school students to develop skills focused on solving problems in food and agriculture.
It will also start an accelerator program that focuses specifically on under-resourced farmers and entrepreneurs. And the organization will leverage relationships with HBCUs like Tennessee State University (TSU), to increase the diversity of startup founders in its pipeline.
“We’ve done some K-12 programs, and we’ve done some boot camps for high school students, but this is our opportunity to flip the switch, and work with the HBCUs, the Black tech organizations, and national Black Growers Council, to help build companies that are owned by Black people,” Nelson said. “Now is the time to go back into the universities, and help create leading tech organizations, and technologists, in some of these big global ag and food programs."
