Media Contact
Adam Sledd: (804) 677-3885 | Adam@Dominnovation.com
Ashland, VA –The Dominion Energy Innovation Center (“DEIC”) announced today the eight startups that will make up the 2021 DEIC Accelerate cohort running from late May into September.
“Clean energy products and technologies will benefit our communities and fast-track our endeavors to produce sustainable, green solutions,” said Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer Mark Webb. “DEIC’s Accelerate Program is another avenue for Dominion Energy to explore startups that will shape the future of customer-centric, net-zero energy.”
All eight DEIC Accelerate startups are working on products or services related to energy and clean tech. The 2021 program follows on the heels of a successful 2020 program that saw seven Virginia companies work with Dominion Energy and other partners on business development. Of this year’s group, four of the eight companies have a Virginia connection. The goal is for participating companies to make rapid gains in customer acquisition capabilities, particularly with large scale customers including utilities and government agencies.
“These companies represent a significant cross-section of the technologies we need to meet Virginia’s decarbonization targets, and we are very excited to help them find growth partners in the region,” said Adam Sledd, Director of the Dominion Energy Innovation Center.
2021 DEIC Accelerate cohort includes:
Advanced Aircraft Company: Advanced Aircraft Company (AAC) is an aeronautical engineering and aircraft manufacturing company based in Hampton, VA. AAC produces vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial systems targeting military and commercial markets. Its first product, the HAMR UAS, is a hybrid electric multi-rotor that can carry four pounds of payload for two hours.
ATP-VA: ATP-VA uses a patented Combined Remediation Biomass and Bio-Product Production (CRBBP) process to plant and multi-task special Bio-Crops that capture CO2 and airborne particulate matter. In addition to CO2 sequestration the plants provided added benefits in soil and water remediation and are also used in making circular economy bio-products from the harvested material.
Criticality Sciences: Criticality Sciences’ products address the problem of low probability-high consequence events in networked critical infrastructure. Criticality Sciences provides estimates of a network’s risk of suffering cascade outage, its resilience to disruptions, and related mitigation, to reduce the severity and frequency of catastrophic events, and to support resilient recovery.
Dynamhex: Dynamhex is an intelligence platform for cities and municipalities to plan emissions targets by reducing energy consumption. Dynamhex deploys software as a service for companies, municipalities, and utilities to target climate action and measure impact, through portfolio analysis, project germination and unlocking climate finance. Their technology is compliant with multiple global inventories and protocols which saves time, effort, and resources in complex and large-scale planning on the cloud.
GridCure: GridCure, with offices in Boulder and San Francisco, provides electrical utilities a platform with out-of-the-box deployable applications to help improve reliability and reduce operational costs by predicting asset failure. Clients using some of GridCure’s most popular software modules typically see a 70% reduction in maintenance costs, and 60% improvement in reliability across the monitored assets.
Grid Fruit: Grid Fruit provides a SaaS product that reduces energy and maintenance costs for utilities and food businesses. Using machine learning with enhanced monitoring and dynamic control, Grid Fruit optimizes refrigeration controls and temperature settings to reduce wasted energy and maintenance costs. With AI and physics-based digital twinning, the Grid Fruit technology harnesses building data and the thermal storage capacity of refrigeration systems to provide energy storage for the grid.
Sabreez: Sabreez is a Public Benefit Corporation (PBC) dedicated to integrating renewable energy with consumer demand. Sabreez shows energy consumers when the electric power supply is cleaner for utilities and IoT companies that wish to encourage load shifting, and the Clean Energy Factor shows real time data as well as hourly forecasted data for a week in advance. Central to Sabreez’s Mission is a focus on providing reliable, accurate, and meaningful data all the time, and presenting that data in a format that energy consumers enjoy following.
WeaveGrid: WeaveGrid’s mission is to drive rapid decarbonization in global transport and power sectors by intelligently connecting electric vehicles to the grid. WeaveGrid offers vehicle-grid integration (VGI) smart charging solutions that enable utilities to both provide valuable services to their electric vehicle (EV) customers and support the resiliency of the broader grid.
To learn more about the program, please visit https://www.dominnovation.com/deicaccelerate .
About Dominion Energy Innovation Center
The Dominion Energy Innovation Center, located in Ashland, is an affiliated innovation
center of Activation Capital that supports early-stage advanced technology companies
by providing them with the collaborative space, guidance, and resources needed to accelerate their growth. Founded in November 2009, the Dominion Energy Innovation Center supports great ideas across a wide spectrum of industry sectors in addition to its focus on building the climate technology sector in Virginia. Founding partners of this organization include the signature sponsor, Dominion Energy, as well as Activation Capital, the Town of Ashland, and Hanover County.
DEIC’s main programs include the annual Center Street Pitch Competition co-hosted with Randolph- Macon College, the DEIC Accelerate program for energy-focused startups, and the DEIC Greentech Network, a virtual incubator providing opportunities for startups around the United States. DEIC is proud of our partnerships with several other leading entrepreneurial resource organizations, including the Virginia Capital Region SBDC, the Virginia Accelerator Network, the American Made Challenge Connector Program, and the Wells Fargo-NREL IN2 Incubator program.
