Alberta’s Rewatt Power founder, Prageet Nibber, will join nine other female entrepreneurs in an intensive 12-month program that will help their companies grow.
The following is reposted from MaRS:
TORONTO, September 22, 2021 — MaRS today announced the 10 women entrepreneurs participating in the RBC Women in Cleantech Accelerator. The program aims to help Canadian women scale their clean technology companies.
“This cohort includes some of the most exciting cleantech companies from across the country, including innovative new bio-based materials, digital twins for assessing environmental risks, technology to give electric vehicle batteries new life, and more” said Jane Kearns, VP, Growth Services, MaRS. “We’re excited to put the full power of MaRS behind this group of entrepreneurs to help them grow their companies into global players that are solving some of the world’s most intractable environmental problems.”
Building on the significant success of the MaRS Women in Cleantech Challenge, launched in 2018 in partnership with Natural Resources Canada, the accelerator focuses on supporting women entrepreneurs from across Canada with an emphasis on under-represented communities. Half of the participating entrepreneurs identify as BIPOC.
The 2021/22 cohort members include:
- Shirook Ali, founder and CEO
Ecosystem Informatics Inc, has developed technology to measure greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, air quality and meteorological data for industries and jurisdictions with strong environmental targets. - Myra Arshad, co-founder and CEO
ALT TEX Inc transforms food waste supplied from manufacturers into polyester-like, biodegradable, carbon-neutral textiles. - Natalie Ashdown, director of operations
Evoco Ltd develops foam materials, which are more than 70-percent bio-based. - Myrna Bittner, founder and CEO
RUNWITHIT Synthetics Inc assesses environmental risks using digital twins — of buildings, utilities and even entire cities. - Fei Luo, co-founder
Liven Proteins Corp takes lost food and turns it into new, animal-free protein using fermentation. - Prageet Nibber, founder
ReWatt Power fights climate change from an unexpected angle — climate accounting and monetization. - Sumreen Rattan, co-founder and chief operating officer
Moment Energy relieves the grid at peak times by repurposing and integrating second-life electric-vehicle (EV) batteries. - Rachel Taylor, co-founder and chief operating officer
SBQuantum has developed a platform for building precise, localized magnetic models of the earth to better understand the environment. - Heather Ward, president and co-founder
Hyperion Global Energy Corp has created a modular drop-in unit (based in a shipping container) that captures CO2 emissions from heavy industry and converts them into valuable materials. - Victoria Xu, co-founder
CleanInnoGen Energy Solutions Ltd produces green hydrogen from waste heat with lower temperature requirements, reduced electricity and greater tolerance to unfiltered water.
The one-year accelerator provides participants with targeted advisory support, access to investor and mentor networks and the opportunity to join events held by MaRS and its ecosystem partners. Women recruited for the accelerator will also have the opportunity to access advisory services with federal research labs to support their R&D activities.
The accelerator is supported by RBC Tech for Nature — a multi-year commitment to preserving the world’s greatest wealth: our natural ecosystem. Working with partners like MaRS, RBC is supporting the development of technology and innovation capabilities to solve pressing environmental challenges
“These solutions are needed more than ever to help build the sustainable, inclusive future we all want to see,” said Valerie Chort, Vice-President, Corporate Citizenship & Sustainability, RBC. “We’re thrilled to partner with MaRS in supporting this diverse group of entrepreneurs and help to advance their breakthrough ideas into market-ready cleantech products.”
The accelerator is also supported by RBCx, a full-service platform to accelerate the entrepreneurial journey at every stage of growth — providing access to capital solutions, innovative products and services, and operational expertise to help technology companies scale.
“The first cohort of RBC Women in Cleantech contained six outstanding entrepreneurs and companies who saw unbelievable progress,” said Peter McArthur, VP, National Cleantech Lead at RBCx. “This inspirational new cohort, now increased to 10 entrepreneurs, are taking on many of the key challenges facing our transition towards net-zero. The RBCx Cleantech team is thrilled to be working with and providing advice to them, helping to accelerate their journey to commercialize innovative, clean technologies.”
Learn more about the RBC Women in Cleantech Accelerator and this cohort.
About MaRS
MaRS is North America’s largest urban innovation hub. A registered non-profit, MaRS supports high-growth startups and scale-ups tackling key issues in health, cleantech, fintech and other sectors. In addition, MaRS convenes all members of the tech ecosystem to drive breakthrough discoveries, grow the economy and make an impact by solving real problems for real people — in Canada and around the world.
About Rewatt Power
At Rewatt we believe in doing well while doing good. Everything we do is about empowering our clients to move faster towards their climate goals. Our two products focus on just that -- our online marketplace, Rewatt Market, helps organizations to generate and trade high-quality offsets and credits, while our software platform, Rewatt Connect, helps companies and municipalities to run financial incentive and climate programs with their clients, employees and stakeholders.
