GoodCompany Ventures Selects Climate Ventures 2.0 Cohort
PHILADELPHIA (PRWEB) June 06, 2017 -- GoodCompany Ventures is pleased to announce the launch of GoodCompany Ventures’ Climate Ventures 2.0 accelerator, an innovation engine, funded by the William Penn Foundation, designed to apply private sector resources, ingenuity and expertise to social entrepreneurs with innovations that can enhance climate adaptation and resilience efforts, particularly to Ag and Water systems. With partners from the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Network and the Wharton Social Impact Initiative, the organization has reframed climate threats to food and water systems as actionable market opportunities for entrepreneurs, identifying the prominent areas of innovation in Flood, Drought and Agriculture, and the degree of Venture Capital activity in each.
Over the last year, GoodCompany Ventures has launched a global talent search, leveraging their 80+ Pipeline Partner network and their 5+mm social media reach, and partnering with Comcast machineQ and OpenIDEO to scour the globe for the most promising applications. Sectors of interest include porous pavement advanced materials, IoT remote sensing and monitoring technologies, drones and robotics, big data analytics and climate modeling technologies, among others. GoodCompany received over 2500 responses from 60 countries, and reviewed over 150 applications with insight and feedback from subject matter experts, policy makers and investors alike. Only ten companies will be offered a spot in the cohort, receiving a $25,000 Impact Grant to fund their participation in GoodCompany Ventures’ rigorous three-month accelerator program.
Over the next 5 months, these companies will undergo intensive acceleration. As each one moves through the core business modeling work, it will receive customized guidance and feedback from an Industry Advisor Network that includes Google Earth Engine, Campbells Soup, IBM, General Mills, among others; a Capital Coach network with investors active in these spaces, and pilot and policy advisors from the EPA, the Philadelphia Water Department and Rockefeller Foundation.
Climate Ventures 2.0 2017 Cohort:
ENVIRODRONE is a Canada and US-based private company which designs and fabricates the most intelligent UAVs of its kind to accurately map crops, mining sites, quarries, forests, construction sites etc. When designing a new small ducted-fan VTOL UAS model to serve the environmental sector, the company has attained the effectiveness of a quality camera solution and the geospatial software used to process these images. ENVD is collaborating with a variety of companies and academic institutions to investigate and test a new suite of cameras and sensors to improve ENV4D vision processing software.
STORMSENSOR TERRAPIN — Despite the large number of stormwater sensors available, none of them are cost-effective or capable of operating in a mesh network over a large area, making data acquisition difficult. With the StormSensor Terrapin sensors, users can track both water quality and quantity throughout municipalities and facilities to identify problems (e.g., flooding or pollution sources) early, and direct funds to fix specific problems, instead of applying a blind, blanket, hope - based approach.
PYCNO helps tackle one of the biggest challenges of this century - Food Security - by building a network of wireless sensors for growers that are simple to use and maintenance free. These sensors measure key parameters of the soil and the air such as Soil moisture, Soil temperature, Temperature and Humidity of the Air and Solar radiation that are later on mixed with other regional data to provide their users with best practices on how to be more efficient producing food. Current users show an improvement on the quality and quantity of their harvest while also reducing the amount of resources such as water, pesticides, fertilizers, fungicides and electricity that they use.
CLOUD TO STREET — By leveraging global satellite imagery, social media feeds, machine learning, and the crowd, Cloud To Street makes critical risk information cheap, streamable, inclusive of marginalized communities, and available to the most vulnerable communities. Their proprietary algorithm dynamically identifies the floodplain for any community around the world within seconds and uses predictive analytics to determine who is likely to be
impacted by the disaster.
PAVERGUIDE — is a structural base for paving systems. It is manufactured from recycled plastic and exceeds H-20 loading. PaverGuide is installed faster and cheaper than the stone it replaces, and at 90% void, it provides a massive rainwater reservoir and expansive infiltration surface. Use PaverGuide for increased productivity, increased profitability, and expansion of your clean, green, and professional image.
DIGITAL FARM —IOT kits will use intelligently connected devices and systems to harness soil moisture & rainfall data gathered by sensors embedded in everyday farm tools, equipping farmers with data and insight to improve water management in the face of climate threats. To increase adoption amongst farmers in low power areas without internet, Digital Farms will use battery powered sensors, solar powered gateways and low power long range modules to collect data using cellular networks via Bluetooth, SMS and USSD.
AGROSMART believes that it’s possible to improve food production and people’s life in the fields by doing things in a smarter way. In order to improve productivity and optimize the use of resources in agriculture they created a solution for smart farming, connecting farmers to their crops. By monitoring several environmental conditions they allow growers to make better decisions, achieving a more productive and sustainable agriculture.
FREDSENSE TECHNOLOGIES is a water instrumentation company building fast, portable and incredibly easy to use chemical sensors using the power of biology. FREDsense rivals analytical lab data, requires no sample preparation and represents a method for scalable analysis. With traction in the wastewater remediation, environmental consulting, and utilities markets, FREDsense is a disruptive technology changing how we think about what's in our water.
INTRASEN provides reliable solution for groundwater monitoring. Their product Intelligent Groundwater Monitoring and Mapping System (IGMMS) is an autonomous water sensing product. The key advantages of IGMMS are reliable data acquisition, competitive cost and simplified operation. Obtained data can be accessed locally by operators or remotely using broadband wireless network. Data can also be displayed as a report or hydro-map using Intrasen software called Watson. Equipped with adaptive algorithm to monitor groundwater, IGMMS adjust its operation to get the most accurate data from every well, even remotely.
HAZUR is a new management system for cities that helps city managers and experts to face the shocks and stressors of climate change, political instability or new technological complex systems. HAZUR optimizes the management of the different urban services based on interdependency, risk analysis, simulation of impacts and monitoring of critical infrastructures.
For more information about the Climate Ventures 2.0 program, visit
http://climateventures2.globalinnovationexchange.org
Climate Ventures 2.0—
Climate Ventures 2.0 was formed in response to The Climate Data Initiative, a call to action by the Obama Administration to leverage the Federal Government’s vast and open data resources to stimulate the kinds of innovation and entrepreneurship that can empower America’s communities and businesses to take action against climate change and prepare for the future. Climate Ventures 2.0 (CV2) is uniquely positioned to draw on the resources committed to this global White House program to spur public/private responses to climate threats. To date, the CDI has attracted commitments from leaders across all affected sectors:
● Technology : Google, Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, HP, EMC, ESRI
● Consumer : Walmart, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, Monsanto, Mars, Kellogg
● NGO : United Nations, World Bank, Rockefeller, USAID, Red Cross, WWF
● Academic : MIT, Columbia, Chicago, Wharton
White House Fact Sheet
Climate Data Initiative
Here is what entrepreneurs can expect:
● A non-equity $25,000 GoodCompany Ventures Impact Grant per selected team;
● The most rigorous business and financial development programming, averaging $10mm in investment per cohort;
● One-on-one mentoring from policy experts, Fortune 500 industry advisors and investors;
● Connection to global network of advisors, investors and peers through USAID's Global Innovation Exchange;
● Free 24/7 office support for cohort, within Benjamin’s Desk, Philadelphia’s largest entrepreneur co-working network;
● Access to $75,000 in pilot funding for regional implementations, with opportunities for global replication within the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Network;
● Opportunity to pitch for investment at private investor demo-days in NYC, DC and SFO.
ABOUT WILLIAM PENN FOUNDATION
The William Penn Foundation, founded in 1945 by Otto and Phoebe Haas, is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the greater Philadelphia region through efforts that increase educational opportunities for children from low-income families, insure sustainable environment, foster creativity that enhances civic life, and advance philanthropy in the Philadelphia region. In partnership with others, the foundation works to advance opportunity, ensure sustainability, and enable effective solutions. Since inception, the foundation has made nearly 10,000 grants totally over $1.6 billion.
http://www.williampennfoundation.org
ABOUT GOODCOMPANY VENTURES
GoodCompany Ventures provides entrepreneurs the resources to adapt new technologies to unmet social needs, including partnerships and proprietary programs to: reframe persistent social problems as market opportunities; design solutions that optimize projected impact; develop business models to take their innovations to scale; foster pilot opportunities to demonstrate market demand; and attract investment capital to fuel their impact. To date, graduates have raised over $60mm in private capital to generate a projected $5bb in social impact. GCV is a 501(c)3 nonprofit. Their work has been made possible with support from leadership organizations including Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Knight Foundation, Halloran Philanthropies and the William Penn Foundation.
http://goodcompanyventures.org
White House Quote:
“Through his Climate Data Initiative, President Obama is calling for all hands on deck to unleash data and technology in ways that will make businesses and communities more resilient to climate change” said John Holdren, President Obama’s Science Advisor “The commitments being announced today answer that call by empowering the US and global agricultural sectors with the tools and information needed to keep food systems strong and secure in a changing climate”
GoodCompanyVentures Quote
“GoodCompany Ventures was remarkably effective in its early days as one of the first social impact accelerators¨” said Garrett Melby, Executive Director of GoodCompany Ventures. “We were thrilled to have the quality of the program recognized by the White House when they asked us to develop this program, and we want to recognize and thank the William Penn Foundation for their generous, innovative and groundbreaking support that allows us to launch the first cohort of this global program.”
Media Inquiries
Catherine Griffin, Managing Director
Catherine(at)GoodCompanyGroup.org
Catherine Griffin, GoodCompany Ventures, http://www.goodcompanyventures.org, +1 2157400065, [email protected]
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