Addressing the climate crisis requires scaling new clean technologies for every sector of the economy. Accordingly, the clean energy transition is referred to as the single greatest investment opportunity of this generation.
Investors poured a record-breaking $60 billion into cleantech in the first half of 2021, which represents a 210 percent year-on-year increase. Even still, cleantech startups face an uphill battle to commercialization. Startups working on “hard” technology, especially those operating in heavily regulated environments, must spend years conducting research and development in a laboratory setting.
Access to additional intellectual, technical and testing resources is crucial to helping startups cross this “technology valley of death.” The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator has helped all 18 of its agtech and green buildings alumni companies advance from prototype or benchmark stage to the commercial-ready stage, by providing them with access to state-of-the-art facilities and world-class technical experts at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center (Danforth Center). READ MORE