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June 24, 2024—In 2024, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2) celebrates its 10th anniversary under the management of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s) Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center. As part of the 10-year celebration, NREL is looking back at IN2’s inaugural cohort to see how the companies have progressed over the last decade.
NREL Senior Building Energy Researcher Shanti Pless looks at the startups he works with as part of the IN2 program as his children.
“You’re nurturing them and supporting their aspirations,” he said. “And celebrating their success when they graduate.”
Pless was part of IN2 from the very beginning, helping to choose the participants for the first cohort 10 years ago. For one of the companies, ESS Inc., Pless suggested the company apply and championed it through the process.
“I believed in ESS because of the simplicity of the company’s flow batteries,” Pless said. “The battery business in general is hard, and back in 2014 there were many different flow batteries in the market. But ESS really leaned into the simplicity of it all, and while others have come and gone, ESS is one of the only ones left.”
Read more about ESS Inc.’s journey from cohort 1 of IN2 to today.
