The Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator helps seed-stage startups from around the world developing clean energy solutions achieve technical and commercial milestones that accelerate development, establish market adoption, and expand their reach.
This week the accelerator announced the ventures for their fourth cohort. The 12 ventures in Class 4 are driving innovation in Advanced Materials, Carbon Management or Accounting, Digital Technologies, Energy Efficiency or Storage, Hydrogen, Solar, and Corrosion Detection.
Calgary’s CarboMat is one of two Canadian startups included in the cohort.
CarboMat was founded in early 2022 as a spin-off from the University of Calgary with the support of the GRInSTEM Fellowship Award from the Global Research Initiative (GRI).
The CDL Rockies Energy stream graduate is developing a less GHG-intensive technology to produce low-cost and high-value carbon fibers from low-value waste by-products such as oil sands asphaltenes for multifunctional applications in the composite industry (e.g., automotive, sports, leisure, etc.).
CarboMat recently received more than $4 million of non-dilutive grant funding from ERA, Alberta Innovates, and CNRL to build their first kg-scale pilot facility. The project is supported by eight upstream and downstream partners in addition to funding support from NRC IRAP and MITACS
“We are very excited to join Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator for this year’s cohort after a very competitive intake process. Transitioning from Calgary to Houston frequently during the course of the program would significantly help CarboMat to connect to the pool of mentors and investors in the Houston clean energy community which could further accelerate and drive our journey towards commercialization soon,” Shabab Saad, CarboMat’s CEO and co-founder, told Calgary.tech.
“We are very happy to mingle within the cleantech bubble at RICE CEA to highlight the impact of our unique low-cost and sustainable carbon fiber solution in the ever changing global materials industry.”
CarboMat will be joining the cohort in Houston three times over the next three months and will present at Demo Day at the Energy Tech Venture Forum, as part of the Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week taking place September 9-13, 2024.
In 2023, two Calgary-based companies earned headlines at the annual energy forum as Galatea was recognized with the People’s Choice award and Ayrton Energy was selected as a top 10 most promising company.
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