Climate-conscious companies share the spotlight at Techstars event

DENVER — Startup companies with their sights set on scaling up are often judged based on the answer to a single question: Can you be profitable?

While making money was still a key criteria, it wasn’t the only factor on display Wednesday night at the second annual Techstars Sustainability Accelerator Demo Day.

The event, which highlights startups focused on solving the world’s climate crisis through entrepreneurship, is a collaboration with The Nature Conservancy, a Virginia-based organization that raises money and awareness for environmental conservation causes around the world. The Nature Conservancy maintains a Colorado field office in Boulder.

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During the event,10 founders pitched their products and services before a packed crowd of friends, families, colleagues and investors gathered at Denver’s Seawell Ballroom.

“Action is the antidote to despair,” Techstars Sustainability Accelerator program director Hannah Davis said. 

Ivan Lopez, Techstars’ West Region accelerator general manager, echoed her sentiment, adding: “We believe with our hearts and souls that entrepreneurs will make a better world.

Here’s a breakdown of the companies that participated in Wednesday’s Demo Day event:

Propagate Ventures (Palo Alto, California) is an investment platform that helps farmers raise capital to integrate fruit and nut trees — which reduce greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere — into existing agricultural operations.

“Farmers struggle to get funding because investors see financial challenges. Propagate paves the way for investors to unlock huge markets,” Propagate Ventures CEO Ethan Steinberb said. “… I’m talking about owning trees as assets alongside commercial farmland.”

Mobius (Knoxville, Tennessee) has developed a chemical process that turns organic waste materials into biodegradable plastics to make products such as flower pots.

“Our mission is to create a world where there is wonder in waste,” Mobius CEO Tony Bova said. “… We combine the power of technology, chemistry and engineering to do just that.”

Nori (Seattle) is bringing to market a platform that encourages and incentivizes farming methods that remove carbon from the atmosphere.

“We’ve taken the guesswork out of how much carbon dioxide you need to remove,” making the fight against climate change a “straight-forward engineering problem,” Nori CEO Paul Gamble said.

Mammoth Water (Denver) is an automated water allocation tracking software firm for agribusinesses.

“Agricultural water is important. It grows the food we eat and the clothes we wear.” Mammoth Water CEO Richael Young said. 

Society can’t function if farmers simply turn off the tap, she said, so Mammoth is “tapping our insights to help farmers save water and money.”

Gybe (Portland, Oregon) has built a satellite-imagery platform to measure water quality and pollution.

“Our customers, instead of waiting for days for sparse data, get a view of the entire watershed,” Gybe CEO Ivan Lalovic said.

Bext360 (Denver) is a blockchain firm that tracks supply chains for products such as coffee, seafood, timber, minerals and cotton from producer to end-user.

Consumers “want to make sustainable purchases, but they don’t know what to look for as proof of sustainability,” Bext360 chief sustainability officer Allyson Quijano said. The platform “ensures what you are eating and drinking is authentic and produced sustainably.”

Aquaoso (Folsom, California) is a groundwater asset-mapping and research tool for lenders, appraisers and researchers.

The tool functions much “like a credit score for water,” Aquaoso CEO Chris Peacock said. “We live in a new reality where water risk is a business risk.”

Regen Network (Great Barrington, Massachusetts) has created a carbon-credit-like marketplace platform that connects farmers to companies and institutions to form regenerative agriculture agreements.

“Regent Network is giving governments and corporations an easy way to achieve their [carbon-reduction] goals.” Regen CEO Christian Shearer said

MicroTerra (Mexico City) s a biotechnology company that converts contaminated agricultural wastewater into proteins that can be fed to fish.

The firm’s system “ensure that clean water flows forever,” MicroTerra CEO Marissa Cueva Flores said.

2ndNature (Santa Cruz, California) is a cloud-based stormwater management compliance and automation software firm.

The aim of the company is to “manage the rain that falls on our cities into a resource instead of a waste product,” 2ndNature CEO Nicole Beck said.