Channel Partners
August 7, 2024—In 2023, the Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) chose seven winners for its seventh Channel Partner Strategic Awards cycle. This funding addresses gaps in the cleantech and agtech ecosystems, with the goal to eliminate barriers startups face on the road to commercialization.
Many awardees focused on supporting pilot and demonstration projects for startups, particularly those with underrepresented founders and helping underserved communities. Here is the story of how one winner used their award and the impact they made in less than a year.
Grid Catalyst is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota and President and Founder Nina Axelson says it was born from a tragedy in her community four years ago.
“After the death of George Floyd, we were called upon to do everything we could,” Axelson said. “To ask ourselves: ‘Am I showing up every day with as much as the world needs from me, at this time where there is so much need?’ I am compelled by both the climate crisis and the deep racial inequities in our community. Those are not different things; they are tied together. We must create more places for people of color and women and allow them to be the first in line for the technologies their communities need.”
Before creating Grid Catalyst, a clean energy and cleantech accelerator focused on demonstration pathways, Axelson led the sustainability initiatives for a utility. For years, she sat across the table from startups looking for opportunities to run a pilot or a demonstration. She always had to ask if they already had a pilot and turned them away if they did not. She now aims to change that.
“We were sending people to languish and not to make it,” Axelson said. “This is why we help startups that are in the pre-commercialization stage, especially ones that need to demonstrate their technology actually works in the real world.”
Grid Catalyst’s strong network of community and ecosystem partners focuses on finding partnership opportunities for diverse founders, both existing and future. It gives priority to diverse applicants, but it is still tricky to achieve diversity goals. The first cohort was entirely made up of white men. Since then, the diversity numbers keep improving.
SYNCRIS, a clean technology company with a product that promises to revolutionize microgrids, is a proud graduate of Grid Catalyst’s program. Photo courtesy of Grid Catalyst
“Our applicant pool and our cohort were more diverse for the 2024 cycle. We want to get to the point where that’s the prevailing norm,” Axelson said. “Women and Black Americans are deeply underrepresented in the energy workforce ratio. Those are things we must pay attention to when we’re doing the work.”
Grid Catalyst already has relationships with some of the biggest companies in the Minneapolis area, including 3M, Cummins, and Xcel Energy. These industry partners provide opportunities for the accelerator’s participants to test out new technologies.
Axelson says the strategic award from the Channel Partner network made a huge difference in Grid Catalyst’s success.
“It felt like we might not be able to fulfill our mission until we were selected for the strategic award,” she said. “It helped us expand out, and now I can say with certainty that we are going to fulfill our purpose and our mission. And, we are going to continue looking for ways to do it better.”
Axelson also says being part of the Channel Partner network is a vital source of support.
“We don’t do any of this alone,” she said. “I had no idea that this world of people existed before starting Grid Catalyst and they’re so amazing. It’s so deeply collaborative and everybody is cheering for each other. I could gush forever about the Channel Partners and what it means to be in a community with those folks. They’re just like: ‘Come on in, let’s go, you’re with us now.’”