Innosphere wins Channel Partner Award from Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator

FORT COLLINS — The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator, also known as IN2, a technology incubator funded by Wells Fargo and co-administered by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, has selected Innosphere as the recipient of its IN2 Channel Partner Award.

As an official Channel Partner of the IN2 program, Innosphere is being recognized for its efforts to advance sustainable technology solutions to improve energy efficiency, according to a news release.

IN2 was launched in 2014 and is a $30 million program supporting the commercialization of clean energy technology in commercial buildings and the agriculture sector. To increase collaboration, IN2 set up a system of channel partners consisting of a nationwide network of incubators, accelerators and university programs that can refer startups to the IN2 program. Fort Collins-based Innosphere is one of those partners.

This marks the third year of the Channel Partner Awards, which disburses $1 million in competitive grants across 13 organizations — Innosphere being one of them — to advance sustainable technology solutions.

Innosphere, which works with science- and technology-based startup and scaleup companies, was selected for its focus on artificial intelligence and machine learning. Innosphere has developed specialized programming for entrepreneurs joining their summer AI cohort.

Innosphere will receive $100,000 from IN2, which will be used to waive the typical $2,500 fee of joining an Innosphere cohort. Applications for the program are due May 15 and the program itself will take place in June and July. This marks the first AI cohort for Innosphere.

“Artificial intelligence will affect most major industries in Colorado in a big way in the next five to 10 years as well as the rest of the country,” Ben Walker, AI program director for Innosphere, told BizWest. “Corporate America has an interest in incorporating AI, but its strategies are not as robust as its interest. They’re working on it, but this provides the opportunity for smaller players with talent in AI to help corporate partners.”

That opportunity for smaller players is what led Innosphere to launch its AI program, Walker said. While a typical Innosphere program will focus on general startup information like company formation, IP strategy and capital acquisition, Walker said the AI program will cater more to its industry.

The three main business topics that will be covered are how the legal area surrounding AI is changing, how to manage bias in AI, and product market fit. There will also be a focus on the technical engineering side of AI.

“Ultimately, the goal with our Channel Partner Awards Program is to create a strong, collaborative ecosystem of support across the country,” said Trish Cozart, IN2 program manager at NREL, in a prepared statement. “We are funding these partners to continue their support of early-stage entrepreneurs and support of each other as they create partnerships and share knowledge.”

The Channel Partner Awards have distributed more than $2.1 million since 2017.

“The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator is proud to provide additional support to Innosphere for their efforts to accelerate the development and commercialization of clean technology and support early-stage entrepreneurs,” Ramsay Huntley, clean technology and innovation philanthropy program officer with Wells Fargo, said in a statement. “These are the folks who are really disrupting the industry and driving innovation.”

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