Virtual Pitch Competition for Women Founders and Founders of Color will award $8,500 in Non-Dilutive Cash Prizes to Climate Tech & Energy Tech Startups
The mHUB EnergyTech Startup Pitch Competition will showcase cutting-edge hardtech startups specializing in climate and energy technologies. This pitch competition, taking place virtually on Tuesday, June 27, 2023, is designed to support under-represented women founders and entrepreneurs of color.
Startups focused on innovative climate tech and energy technologies can apply to pitch virtually to a group of esteemed judges for cash awards totaling $8,500 and connections to industry decision-makers and investors interested in hardtech.
1st Place Prize: $5,000
2nd Place Prize: $2,500
3rd Place Prize: $1,000
Meet the Finalists:
Congratulations to the six finalist teams who will be pitching at mHUB's Climate & EnergyTech Pitch Competition:
- Active Surfaces Inc. - Commercializing an ultra-thin film solar technology that can unlock terrawatts of dual land use next generation deployment.
- Aerovec Inc. - Designing a compact, integrated, portable wind turbine, which is patented and designed to work in conjunction with other renewable technologies to make clean and reliable energy available 24/7.
- Amaterra Tech - Building and designing stable, cheap, advanced, and clean microgrids and implementing the control systems onto the grid components.
- Magnetrics Energy Solutions LLC - Creating a novel Electromagnetic Propulsion Drive Unit to be a universal clean energy technology that is reliable, scalable, and efficient.
- TerraFixing Inc. - Developing a Direct Air Carbon Capture (DAC) technology for capturing CO₂ in cold dry climates, with the goal of fixing global warming.
- Tikal Industries - Specializing in water quality testing products and services with a hardware system that utilizes a machine learning-powered RAMAN spectroscopy technique to detect contaminants in water.
Startup Eligibility
- At least one founder of your team must be female or a person of color
- The Climate Tech and/or Energy Tech Startup must be pre-series A
- Must be hardtech startup (with elements of physical product and software)
- Startup must be in the field of Climate Tech and/or Energy Technologies
Areas of Focus:
mHUB is looking for breakthrough climate and energy startups working on hardtech and infrastructure solutions in the following areas:
- Renewable Energy
- Hydrogen
- Carbon capture and Sequestration
- Energy storage
- Vehicle-to-grid
- Heat sink technologies
- Distributed energy resources
- Sustainable buildings
- The internet of energy
Pitch Competition Judges
- Ritu Bromley, Senior Manager of Strategy at Invenergy
- Mary Stefanidakis, Commercialization & Development- Clean Energy Solutions with Constellation Energy
- Alexandra Gross, Program Manager at Evergreen Climate Innovations
- Roxanne Charles, President of West Side Forward
- Kelly Evans, VP Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at Chicago Urban League
- Leslie McKinney, Chicago Director at BWISE
- Dan Miller, Director of Innovation Crossroads at Oak Ridge National Laboratory