Fellows and staff of Innovations Crossroads, a Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node at Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, joined representatives from across government, academia and the startup ecosystem at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for Demo Day, organized by Cyclotron Road, on Wednesday, May 21.
Innovation Crossroads Fellows are early career energy and manufacturing entrepreneurs who are selected for a two-year program that connects them with ORNL resources and provides mentorship in marketing and entrepreneurship.
“Innovation Crossroads startups are accelerating the journey of scientific and technical innovations into the market,” said Dan Miller, Innovation Crossroads program director. “Participants bring new ideas into ORNL labs and facilities, contributing to the culture of curiosity and problem solving that fuels the work done at ORNL.”
Alumni shared successes, including Rajan Kumar of Ateois Systems. Ateois Systems recently won a $1 million investment as part of the TitletownTech Startup Draft to accelerate production of battery electrodes without toxic solvents or forever chemicals.
Other Innovation Crossroads Fellows who shared their work in pitch sessions include:
- Md Arifuzzaman, Re-Du, which combats the problem of plastic waste by turning mixed plastics into new materials.
- Shantonio Birch, ThermoVerse, which addresses energy inefficiency in existing buildings with minimally invasive solutions
- Sarah Jordan, Skuld, which uses additive manufacturing evaporative casting to advance manufacturing. Skuld recently won an America Makes call.
- Dan Lee, Perseus Materials, a composite manufacturing startup, which recently won the Process, Manufacturing and Equipment category of the JEC Composites Startup Booster on March 4.
- Manas Pathak, EarthEn, which is developing long-duration energy storage.
- Marouane Salhi, Qubit Engineering, which works to advance quantum optimization technology for the energy sector.
Since its first cohort in 2017, Innovation Crossroads has supported over 45 startups, which have gone on to create more than 320 jobs nationally, nearly $34 million in sales and $247 million in post-program funding.
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science. — Brynn Downing