Techstars and The Nature Conservancy debut first Sustainability Demo Day

DENVER — The first Sustainability Accelerator by Techstars and The Nature Conservancy showcased its startups at a Demo Day on Wednesday evening, where the theme unequivocally was “the time is now” to do something about climate change.

At the event was leadership from The Nature Conservancy — including president Brian McPeek, CEO Mark Tercek and new chief technology officer Sherri Hammons; leadership from Techstars — with co-founders David Cohen, David Brown and Brad Feld all speaking; and many founders who worked with the two organizations and startups. The cohort was the first in a three-year partnership between the two organizations. 

The accelerator came together, Tercek explained, after The Nature Conservancy realized that while it was a good organization for conservation, it needed to do more and work faster to meet its goals — the recent United Nations climate change revealing there was only 12 years before catastrophic damage would take place was invoked several times during the night. Tercek said that he felt technology was the way to meet those goals. Tercek said that he also wanted to bring more people into the conservation movement, and saw a new generation of untapped technologists he could bring into the fold. And he added that TNC is a large group that could learn something from seeing how startups operate. He decided to reach out to Feld for a partnership.

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Feld, a long-time donor to TNC, was happy to oblige.

“There’s a cliche that floats around the entrepreneur and tech worlds for as long as I’ve been starting companies and investing, and that’s ‘entrepreneurs want to do things to change the world,’” Feld said. “But how many of you can see that you have apps on your phone and are 100 percent sure some of them are not going to change the world?”

He added that many entrepreneurs end up spending their energy on things that would be a successful business or interesting project, but don’t line up with the notion of changing the world.

“It was appealing to me, when my wife Amy and I talked with Mark and Brian about the idea around innovation and TNC because we might actually get to a place where a large percentage of the companies actually had the potential to change the world.”

Of those potential world-changing companies, four worked with water conservation in some way, two were focused on sustainable fishing, one on energy storage, one on sustainable construction and the other two on incentivizing people to conserve more.

Here is a breakdown of the companies and their pitches.

• Storm Sensor, presented by CEO Erin Rothman, is making low-cost, easily-monitored sensors that can help the thousands of U.S. cities dumping raw sewage into waterways collect data on stormwater runoff. Stormwater runoff is the No. 1 cause of source water pollution and the only form of pollution that continually gets worse. Her company deploys sensors in a city that updates a web app cities monitor every few minutes to provide insights on what a city’s stormwater system is doing. The current sensors cities use are outdated and can costly, but Storm Sensor is charging a smaller monthly fee that adds up to be about $150,000 per year for cities. So far, the company has lined up 23 pilots and it sold out of its first and second manufacturing runs. Storm Sensor has also raised $1.5 million so far.
• Nikola Power, presented by CEO J.W. Postal, is making a simple, smart, scalable solution to increasing the rapid adoption of energy storage. Renewable energy from solar has been up 50 percent every year for the last 10 years and 25 percent of electricity in many states, including Colorado, comes from wind energy, but neither of those energy sources work without being able to store them on days when it isn’t sunny or windy. Batteries are the solution for storage, and Nikola Power is making battery storage smarter with an app that provides an energy management system for battery users. The smart software provides insight on batteries to help users save about 20 percent on their electric bill each month. The company has partnerships with TNC, Panasonic and Chargepoint, among others, to collect data on their own energy storage systems.
• Flywire, presented by CEO Jacob Isaac-Lowry, is looking to help fisheries operate at the maximum sustainable yield, which would be better for the environment than just trying to fish less and would add $2.2 billion to the U.S. alone if it happened. Most of the world’s fisheries don’t have enough verifiable data of what’s happening on the water, so Flywire makes small cameras that can be installed on a ship and collect visual and GPS data on where a ship is fishing and what it’s catching. The goal is to create technology that can verify what happens on the water to create more sustainable seas and supply chain. The company has already partnered with the wild-caught high-end restaurant market, a $350 million opportunity and just 3 percent of the $10 billion total market opportunity. The company is also looking to add more features like predictive insights and safety data.
• Lotic Labs, presented by CEO Will Tynan, is bringing water investment data into the 21st century. Right now, investors have data on the gold market, municipal bonds and any number of tech stocks just through their phone, but investing in water is still very difficult. Lotic Labs’ software provides data on water quality, can do simulations and find the best possible investment. It can help a water bottling plant decide if it should invest in a new filtration system or if it’s a better investment to pay farmers upstream to perform cleaner farming practices and reforest. It currently can take water investment consultants $1 million and 24 months to answer those sort of questions, but Lotic Labs says it can do so for a fixed fee between $50,000 to $200,000 and about four months to collect the data, run simulations and come up with an answer.
• Watchtower, presented by CEO Tyler Mantel, is reducing drinkable water waste in cities’ extensive pipe systems. Currently, 20 percent of the world’s clean water doesn’t make it to the consumer, which costs the world $160 billion and is enough water to fill Lake Michigan. That water waste can come from leaking pipes, but the problem is today it can be very difficult to find a pipe leak. To do so requires tearing up an entire street and leaks can only be found in metal pipes, despite 40 percent of the world’s pipes being built from a material that isn’t metal. Watchtower has created a solution by sending robots into the pipe system through one fire hydrant, and then letting it 3D map the pipe system before exiting through another fire hydrant. The result is the ability to find leaks that are much smaller, within one foot accuracy in any pipe material. Competitors are charging $20,000 per mile, but Watchtower is able to do it for $2,000, meaning that cities have been able to pay proactively for the service in a larger area with the savings its gained from detected leaks.
• Aqulytics, presented by CEO Nathan Lubeck, is also a water conservation company. It’s helping governments track water pollution and collaborate with other organizations to do so. Aqulytics deploys sensors, helps conduct surveys in the field and tap into government databases to track water pollution and then closes the data gap between stakeholders. Government agencies, NGOs, community leaders and companies can work together to track and report pollution and then take action.
• This Fish, presented by CEO Eric Enno Tamm, also looks to modernize the fishing industry by taking the data collected off of paper ledgers and into the digital age. Currently there is a bottleneck of data concentrated at the 60,000 fish processors and canneries in the world. This Fish’s platform, Tally, helps processors collect traceability data. They can input information on where and how it was caught, weight and grade, how it was processed, shipped and ultimately get a report back that provides information on fair trade certification, inventory and traceability. The need for the traceability of fish is driven both by regulations and market demand and by self-interest, and collecting data can improve efficiency and save on cost. This Fish charges a monthly SaaS fee that scales with a business and recently partnered with one of the largest consultancies in Vietnam to tackle the farmed shrimp industry.
• Node, presented by CEO Don Bunnell, is bringing sustainability to the home construction industry. The company has created zero-emission homes that can be assembled, almost like Legos, using 1/10 of the people, 1/10 of the time and half of the cost of current home construction. The parts of a home are shipped on a flat-pack truck and assembled on a foundation. The home is already smart-enabled, which means that the pieces can indicate through sensors whether they are being assembled correctly and the completed home can power itself with solar batteries, collect water and are built from nontoxic materials. Node is also looking to address the shortage of construction workers by training a new fleet of workers how to assemble Node homes.
• Conserve With Us, presented by CEO Ian Rinehart, initially started as a crowdfunding platform but has since looked to solve a need for brands. Inspired by how companies like Patagonia took a stand against the cutbacks of national monuments — and in turn saw its sales jump 5x — Conserve With Us is helping brands connect with causes they care about and bringing the option to give back directly to consumers. A brand can select what NGO they might want to work with and then put in a line of code into their website, that then allows Conserve with Us to show consumers on the brand’s website opportunities to donate or volunteer that is local to them. A Denver shopper looking to buy skis online would see an opportunity pop-up to donate money for a tree planting near them. A shopper in Vermont would see another opportunity in Vermont, and so on. Three companies have already signed on — the company and the NGO each pay a fee for the service — and Conserve with us in talks with several other brands looking to give back.
• Sustain, presented by CEO Marcell Haywood, helps incentivize employees to be more sustainable while helping companies cut back on energy costs. An employer can sign up for Sustain, which contacts employees with ways they can compete with each other or with departments and save on water, energy or solid waste. Winning employees are incentivized by getting prizes they would want, such as a free month of Netflix or yoga membership. Employers are able to see their energy costs go down as employees get involved reducing their carbon footprint. Sustain earns revenue through a SaaS fee and channel partnerships and the company has already signed on with enterprise customers such as AT&T and Cushman & Wakefield.