NYC ACRE: Helping Tech Make the World’s Cities Cleaner and Smarter

For the first time, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. In just a few more decades, the world’s population is predicted to exceed nine billion, of which 70 percent are expected to live in cities. It is important that the environment which the next generation inherits is cleaner, more sustainable, and inherently more livable than previously. The New York City Accelerator for a Clean and Resilient Economy (ACRE) hopes to answer this call by bringing startup businesses that focus on a brighter, more sustainable future together under one umbrella to allow cross pollination and market forces to strengthen urban environments.

When NYC ACRE launched in 2009 with the help of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), it had two key goals: to aid the development of innovative technologies reducing New York’s carbon footprint and to drive cluster development and economic growth in the city and state. Now in its sixth year, ACRE has many achievements to count, including, over $65M raised by tenant companies, ten graduate companies from the program, and two acquisitions.ACRE currently has 17 portfolio cleantech companies and ten graduates including energy efficiency company ThinkEco and real estate platform Honest Buildings. The current ACRE portfolio is also comprised of companies working on grid technology, energy storage, transportation issues, policy issues, and more.Earlier this year with the help of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), ACRE relocated to the Urban Future Lab in downtown Brooklyn, part of the Brooklyn Tech Triangle. The new hub has attracted global attention and continues to develop and maintain relationships with international stakeholders in the cleantech industry.

GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS

The Varick Street Incubator, ACRE’s previous home before the Urban Future Lab, was the first of now 15 NYCEDC-sponsored incubators. NYCEDC’s support demonstrates the impact that governments around the world can have on their economies by adopting an incubator model. Along with the NYCEDC and NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering, the incubator programs have hosted over 100 delegations from countries across the globe including the British Consulate, the Netherlands Consulate and most recently the Confederation of Danish Industry (DI) which joined the Urban Future Lab in April 2014. The DI aims to strengthen ties between the US and Denmark particularly through their Danish Cleantech Hub program.Over the past several years, ACRE has developed a robust global cleantech community and network based in New York City. In 2013, ACRE welcomed its first international companies, REGEN Energy from Toronto, Canada and Smarter Grid Solutions from Glasgow, Scotland.

ACRE COMPANIES HELPING NYC AND BEYOND

REGEN Energy – smart energy managementREGEN Energy came out of the Canadian Technology Accelerator (CTA) and was founded in 2005. The company designs, develops, and markets wireless energy management solutions. Their main product, the Swarm Energy Management system, is an automated demand response and management system installed in electrical cooling, heating or discretionary loads. REGEN Energy’s tenancy at ACRE exemplifies the benefit of the relationship CTA has with NYU’s incubator programs. The relationship has yielded market exposure for REGEN Energy to New York’s major cleantech stakeholders.Smarter Grid Solutions – smartgridsSmarter Grid Solutions, a University of Strathclyde spinout, has created a technology which assists power companies and utilities in using their existing assets to connect more renewable energy to the grid in response to the rise in demand for electricity. Their innovative smart grid platforms and real-time software applications can create two-to-three times more capacity in an existing grid.In 2012 Bloomberg named Smarter Grid Solutions a Bloomberg New Energy Finance Pioneer recognizing their technology as one set to change the energy landscape forever. Now, Smarter Grid Solutions has over 40 employees in the UK and works with many of the top utilities in the UK and Europe. Recognizing that their successes in the UK could be replicated in the US to help take the strain of an aging grid, Smarter Grid Solutions brought its talent to New York City.Smarter Grid Solutions has quickly gained traction in the US and has even taken advantage of ACRE’s internal community by building relationships with fellow tenant companies including HEVO Power.HEVO Power – wireless chargingHEVO Power is a company specializing in wireless charging. They are collaborating with Smarter Grid Solutions on their smart grid technology. Smarter Grid Solutions Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Dr. Bob Currie said, “HEVO Power was one of the first companies we met when we arrived in New York and it quickly became clear we had an opportunity to do something ground-breaking together.”Locally, companies like HEVO Power are driving the clean energy landscape in New York City. Because the target markets and customers of ACRE companies are very grid and city-centric, ACRE companies have a unique opportunity to pilot programs and work with institutional partners such as National Grid and ADT.Bandwagon – smart transportationInnovating new solutions in the way transportation functions in cities is the Bandwagon Rideshare App. Bandwagon is a smart phone app that allows users to share rides to the airport, taking cars off the road and reducing carbon emissions.  Bandwagon, allows users to pay for seats in cabs rather than the whole car.  Currently based in NYC this ridesharing app has the potential to expand to other cities and transform citizens’ view of transportation.ACRE welcomes the challenge of creating an ecosystem and launch pad for local and global startups to succeed in New York City and New York State. ACRE leverages partnerships with major global utilities and offers access to the largest real estate and finance markets in the world. If you are a company interested in joining ACRE at the Urban Future Lab, please do not hesitate to reach out to info@nycacre.com or @nycacre on Twitter.