Kupu
John Leong, CEO
Kupu, a Honolulu-based conservation and youth education nonprofit, hit two big milestones in the past year.
Legislation passed in 2021 appropriated $5 million in funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for the creation of a green job youth corps program that provides temporary work and training opportunities in an effort to address unemployment impacts from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. In January, Kupu helped create and fill 130 new sustainability jobs for those economically affected by the pandemic.
And in partnership with long-time supporter American Savings Bank, Kupu also launched a new food truck at ASB’s Downtown Honolulu campus, with members and alumni of Kupu’s Culinary program working inside the truck. The culinary program helps ready youth to enter the workforce by offering paid training and work opportunities within the culinary industry while focusing on food sourcing and sustainable economy.
The nonprofit, which has doubled its working budget from $8 million to $15 million in the past year, hired 11 new staff members in 2021 and eight more so far in 2022; it also recently raised more than $518,000 during its annual giving campaign.
Website: kupuhawaii.org.
BLAZER
Elemental Excelerator
Dawn Lippert, CEO
Elemental Excelerator, a Honolulu-based nonprofit organization that funds climate technology companies working at the “intersection of climate change and social equity,” now has a portfolio of more than 130 startups that have raised more than $6 billion since its inception and deployed more than 100 projects across the sectors of energy, mobility, water, circular economy and nature-based solutions.
According to its website, Elemental supports entrepreneurs tackling system-wide challenges while filling two gaps for companies — capital for first-of-their-kind projects “with the potential to change the world,” and investment in companies growth strategies.
In May, it was announced that Elemental Excelerator had secured a $32.5 million contract with the Office of Naval Research. The multi-year commitment, which is the nonprofit’s third installment of funding from ONR, will be disbursed over five years, bringing the total funding from ONR to more than $90 million, PBN reported at that time.
Website: elementalexcelerator.com
Parklinq
Tyler Saenz, CEO and product architect
Problems finding parking? There’s an app for that.
Parklinq launched in 2020, borne of a common frustration familiar to many in Honolulu — parking. The public parking app seeks to reduce carbon emissions while finding spaces for those who need to park and help generate income for those with extra parking spots.
According to the company, reserving a parking spot ahead of time saves an average of 20 minutes by nixing the need to circle the block, and therefore reduces both traffic congestion and carbon dioxide emissions. Parklinq estimates that reservations have reduced carbon emissions equivalent to the removal of 476 cars from Hawaii’s roads since 2021.
Originally only offered on Oahu, Parklinq last year expanded operations to Maui.
“Parklinq is hyper-focused on perfecting our client relations and general process improvements for the remainder of 2022,” Tyler Saenz, founder and product architect, told Pacific Business News in April. “We will of course be continuing to respond to RFPs from landowners and lot managers, and these unsolicited incoming requests are actually resulting in around 50% of our new accounts each month. I guess this means that at this time Parklinq is taking a more passive approach to growth and dedicating additional resources to improving service and response to incoming inquiries.”
Website: parklinq.com
Shifted Energy
Forest Frizzell, co-founder and CEO
Olin Lagon, co-founder and CTO
As its tagline suggests, Honolulu-based Shifted Energy, “makes water heaters smart,” and makes “fleets of controlled water heaters even smarter.”
According to its website, the company aims to develop software and controllers that convert electric water heaters into “valuable demand response assets, empowering electricity users and enabling utilities to stabilize their grids while accelerating the integration of renewable energy.”
As part of its mission, Shifted Energy said it coordinates “thousands of aggregated water heaters to shift electricity consumption from times when the grid is stressed and power is expensive to times when renewable generation is plentiful and power is cheap.”
The company announced in May it was one of 12 organizations selected out of more than 400 applicants to participate in the Amazon Web Services Clean Energy Accelerator.
Website: shiftedenergy.com
WAI: Wastewater Alternatives & Innovations
Stuart Coleman, executive director
Innovative technology is among the five pillars of this Honolulu-based nonprofit’s mission.
WAI works to protect Hawaii’s water quality, reduce sewage pollution and restore healthy watersheds, and is leading efforts to develop solutions to the state’s wastewater problems. That’s a pretty big undertaking considering Hawaii has 88,000 cesspools that discharge 53 million gallons of raw sewage into the ground every day.
According to its website, in addition to introducing new sanitation technology to the Islands and finding solutions that are “efficient, affordable and eco-friendly,” WAI also seeks funding sources to help homeowners convert their cesspools and failing septic systems; works with a coalition of groups to pass legislation and update policies to help tackle issues; does community outreach and education; and works with key stakeholders on cutting-edge pilot projects.
Website: waicleanwater.org
