A business accelerator with Wisconsin roots has opened for startups developing products and services intended to address the challenges of climate change head-on.
The Great Lakes Resilience Accelerator launched out of Madison- and Milwaukee-based startup accelerator Gener8tor. Its focus is on carbon sequestration, hazard mitigation and resistance, and ecosystem services, specifically within the Great Lakes ecosystem.
The program will operate out of Chicago. Ryan Jeffery, senior managing director at Gener8tor, said he expects to have at least one full-time person to start along with two or three part-time employees and expects to hire additional staff as the program is built out.
Jeffery said he envisions the program running several cohorts over the next several years, supporting around 40 to 50 startups pending the availability of funding.
Selected participants will receive non-dilutive funding and additional access to one-on-one coaching with seasoned mentors, industry experts, corporate partners and potential investors.
Gener8tor was one of 16 entities selected last month by the Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to receive funding to improve climate resilience. Each organization received around $250,000 in development funding. All will get the chance to apply to Phase 2 of the Ocean-based Climate Resilience Accelerators program, which will award a total of $55 million to up to five of the programs.
"If you look at the other 16 semifinalists, they're all from the coasts, from Hawaii or Alaska — and we're the only one focused on the Great Lakes," Jeffery told Chicago Inno.
Gener8tor launched the Great Lakes Resilience Accelerator in collaboration with Chicago-based water innovation hub Current; the Chain Reaction Innovations program at Argonne National Laboratory; and locally based Mazarine Ventures LLC, a venture capital fund focused on water concerns.
Both Argonne and Current are also involved in Great Lakes ReNew, a six-state collaboration that was one of 10 teams selected earlier this year for up to $160 million in U.S. National Science Foundation funding. While Wisconsin organizations such as the the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Marquette University and others, are involved in the coalition, Milwaukee's The Water Council is not a participant.
The coalition is looking to turn the region into a hub for water innovation by finding new ways to recover and reuse water, energy, nutrients and critical materials from water.
"I think it points to the resources and overall investment that's being made to help build resiliency in the Great Lakes," Jeffery said.
While they are two separate programs, Jeffery expects there to be a fair amount of overlap between the initiatives, including in resources and support.
The application period for the Great Lakes Resilience Accelerator is open until July.
"When you think about climate change and how it's affecting water resources overall, we see the coastal communities of the Great Lakes as being transformed in a lot of ways by climate change," Jeffery said.
