The Hertz Foundation and Breakthrough Energy Discovery today announced a new partnership designed to connect scientific talent with the business expertise, networks, and funding to get breakthrough climate solutions out of the lab and into the market.
There is a growing group of initiatives targeting the so-called “Valley of Death” between demonstration scale and commercial deployment. Mark1’s developer as a service model, advisory firm Precursor, and various FOAK financing vehicles target companies that have both viable technologies and existing business models.
But this new partnership will operate much earlier in the innovation pipeline, even before a startup has officially been created. Hertz and Breakthrough are targeting researchers who are still working to figure out whether their ideas have commercial potential at all.
The Hertz Foundation is a nonprofit organization that awards fellowships to graduate students working in science and technology fields, including climate. Breakthrough Energy Discovery, part of Bill Gates’ climate innovation network, supports researchers and pre-venture first-timers. The latter is funding the partnership via what it calls “ecosystem grants,” which target the creation of new networks to advance clean tech innovation.
The relationship is a symbiotic one: Hertz fellows will gain access to Discovery’s mentorship opportunities and network, and those that develop viable concepts will be able to apply for Breakthrough’s extensive grant programs. In return, Discovery will tap into the Hertz Foundation’s immense pipeline of vetted technical talent, including by integrating Hertz fellows into existing Breakthrough-funded projects in need of additional technical talent.
The goal of the partnership, explained Breakthrough Energy Discovery VP Ashley Grosh, is in part to help de-risk technologies before venture investors enter the scene pushing for commercialization and returns.
“Playing early in this sandbox and really de-risking the tech is something that as an industry we’ve all learned is super important,” Grosh said. “In cleantech 1.0, venture came in too early.” In the rush to get cleantech to market, she added, there were instances where founders had a good idea, but hadn’t done enough testing before trying to commercialize; they essentially got too much funding, too soon.
“What we’re saying is, let us de-risk some of these projects with R&D philanthropic dollars to make sure that there’s a technology there that we can really build a company around,” Grosh added.
That’s ultimately the bet the pair are making: that intervening earlier in the innovation pipeline — before researchers face venture pressure to commercialize, in some cases prematurely — will get more breakthrough climate technologies through the transition from lab to market. Once researchers have gone through any potential pivots and figured out their market fit, they will in theory be more ready for the world of venture capital.
Measuring success in cleantech 2.0
The partnership was initially conceived last summer, during a time when federal research funding appeared relatively stable. Now, however, it is launching under the Trump administration, which has brought federal funding cuts and uncertainty to everyone from the National Laboratories and agencies like the Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to universities.
The uncertainty makes the role of private philanthropy even more important, said Hertz Foundation president Wendy Connors.
“We’ve been around for 65 years, so we’ve seen a lot of ebb and flow and challenges emerge, but we’ve been able to provide consistent and stable funding,” she said.
And this new partnership, Grosh added, could be a model for other organizations looking to support the cleantech sector. “I imagine that we’ll be talking to other donors and other families that we work with that are like-minded, that have philanthropic capacity to support R&D, and that we’ll be able to bring others and catalyze other research dollars,” she explained, adding that it’s “a way to actually bring other funders around the table.”
Both organizations will be tracking success metrics that include application rates to Breakthrough Energy programs, the number of Hertz fellows integrated into existing Breakthrough projects, and the development of new company concepts.
The partnership’s first workshop will take place this summer.
