NYSERDA: Partners & Investors: Building a Statewide Ecosystem
for a World-Class Cleantech Economy
Published:
Friday, August 7, 2015 - 12:10
In 2010, five doctoral students wanted to commercialize a new battery technology they had collaborated on during their research studies at the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (SUNY Poly CNSE) at SUNY Polytechnic Institute (SUNY Poly).
So, they put together a modest business plan, named their company
Battery Energy Storage Systems Technologies (now
BESSTECH
) and entered the college’s New York
Business Plan Competition.
BESSTECH won the grand prize. Over the next few years, the cleantech startup honed its business plan as well as its technology that improves the performance of anodes in lithium-ion batteries. Then in 2012, BESSTECH secured the first-ever license agreement for a student-led spin-off technology from SUNY Poly CNSE.
Since then, the startup has received support from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and the National Science Foundation as well as a $300,000 private angel investment.
“Everything we have been able to tap into at SUNY Poly — from the technology resources to the opportunities to participate in programs such as the business competition as well as the support we still continue to receive — has paved the way to jumpstarting our cleantech company and helping to bring our unique technology to market,” said company co-founder and CEO Fernando Gómez-Baquero.
“BESSTECH’s journey — which started out as a group of students with an idea, testing that idea in a lab, and then a startup launch with the full support of SUNY Poly — is a testament to Governor Andrew Cuomo’s leadership in building an innovation-driven economic development model in which our research and academic institution plays a pivotal role,” said Pradeep Haldar, SUNY Poly CNSE vice president of entrepreneurship innovation and clean energy programs.
Gómez-Baquero and his colleagues have since graduated, but the company still has access to the cleanrooms, laboratories, and office space through the Incubators for Collaborating & Leveraging Energy And Nanotechnology (iCLEAN). The SUNY Poly-operated business incubator, also headed by Haldar, is one of six cleantech incubator programs funded by NYSERDA.
