Black & Veatch prepares cohort for public spotlight at Demo Day

Seven innovative businesses that make up the first cohort of the Black & Veatch IgniteX Cleantech Accelerator are preparing to take their business models public in three weeks… and you can be there to get a peek at the future.

The Black & Veatch IgniteX Cleantech Accelerator, powered by LaunchKC, will conduct its inaugural Demo Day from 4-7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 13 at The Gallery Event Space, 61 E. 14th St. in Downtown Kansas City. Tickets to the Demo Day experience are available by clicking here.

“Demo Day provides the seven startups a forum for them to present their refined business models and growth plans to an audience of potential investors, colleagues within the engineering community and peers in the entrepreneurial tech ecosystem of Kansas City,” said Hyleme George, program director of the Cleantech Accelerator.

The Demo Day audience will hear from seven entrepreneurs who have been working with Black & Veatch personnel and other industry experts to assist them in planning, designing and executing real-world projects in the clean technology space.

The Demo Day event is the culmination of 75 days of education, co-collaboration and partnership – the centerpiece of the IgniteX Cleantech Accelerator program. The cohort has been receiving valuable training and engineering insight to grow their businesses through collaboration with Black & Veatch professionals, as well as exposure and networking opportunities with experienced investors, supporters and clients in Kansas City and around the world.

The seven companies are focused on sustainable solutions that range from artificial intelligence and next-generation analytics to autonomous heavy equipment and electric vehicle energy management. The cohort includes:

  • Aware Vehicles, Kansas City, MO, which employs drones with smart mobile docking platforms, 4D spatial-spectral modelling and real-time analytics to address construction challenges as well as innovative imaging solutions for structural health monitoring;
  • Built Robotics, San Francisco, CA, which specializes in self-driving heavy equipment to make construction safer, faster, and more productive;
  • ecoSPEARS, Altamonte Springs, FL, which uses green technologies to extract and destroy PCBs, dioxins and other chlorinated contaminants from the environment;
  • Electriphi, San Francisco, CA, which deploys a software platform for fleet and energy management that provides operational and infrastructure cost savings for light, medium and heavy-duty commercial electric vehicle fleets;
  • Extensible Energy, Berkeley, CA, which specializes in cloud-based software that controls flexible loads to reduce demand and time-of-use energy charges in small-to-medium buildings;
  • InfraLytiks, Urbandale, IA, which employs software featuring AI and machine learning based on images, complex data or text/financials;
  • NovoNutrients, Sunnyvale, CA, which uses energy from hydrogen to transform waste carbon into protein and other high value products for the aquaculture and animal feed industries.

“The program is building partnerships that seek to accelerate the adoption of sustainable infrastructure through advances in renewable and distributed energy, mobility, agricultural technology, machine learning and AI, environmental services, and other solutions that add value to engineering services,” George said.

About Black & Veatch:

Black & Veatch, the largest engineering company in the Kansas City area, is a global leader in engineering, construction and consulting services for energy, water and telecommunications clients. Its IgniteX Cleantech Accelerator marks one the company’s boldest moves into the entrepreneurial arena of engineering services, following the creation of the company’s Growth Accelerator to explore new and emerging markets.

About LaunchKC:

LaunchKC has evolved from a 5-year-old grants competition into a tech accelerator platform that leverages grants, as well as creates new opportunities for investors, entrepreneurs, workers and the tech ecosystem of Kansas City. Its bottom line is to attract scalable companies to create more jobs and opportunities while growing the local economy. LaunchKC is an initiative of the Downtown Council (DTC) and the Economic Development Corporation (EDCKC) both of Kansas City, Missouri.

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