Led by the Exelon Foundation, the company’s nonprofit philanthropic organization, the initiative invests directly in the projects and people helping to address climate change mitigation and build resiliency to health and environmental pressures in under-resourced communities within Exelon’s service area. Startup applicants were also required to demonstrate how their projects would meaningfully advance state and local jurisdictions’ own sustainability goals under the US Climate Alliance.

“As the nation’s largest producer of carbon-free energy, we understand the important role we must play to help the communities we serve address the environmental and public health impacts of climate change,” said Chris Gould, Exelon Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy and Chief Innovation and Sustainability Officer. “Now more than ever, it’s become clear that real, fundamental change often comes from taking action at the local level. We purposely designed the 2c2i initiative to support early-stage, often-overlooked startups with the potential to make a meaningful, on-the-ground impact on our communities’ climate goals, health and environment.”

Using an innovative new funding and support structure under 2c2i, the Exelon Foundation will invest $10 million over 10 years in early-stage startups working on climate change mitigation, adaptation and resiliency. Exelon Corporation will match those funds with up to a $10 million investment of in-kind services, including mentoring entrepreneurs on ways to access other sources of capital, structure business plans, allocate financial resources and meet regulatory requirements. Selected startups also will be able to tap the company’s internal innovation programs for counsel. Any return on investment will go back to the nonprofit Exelon Foundation to support its philanthropic mission.

Of the startups selected in the first round of funding, 50 percent are minority- or women-owned businesses, 60 percent of the projects are focused on greenhouse gas mitigation, 40 percent are addressing resiliency and adaptation, and all but one startup is either headquartered or already actively engaged in communities within Exelon’s service area. First-round startups will receive $100,000 each from the Exelon Foundation. They are:

Amidus Resilience

The Washington, D.C.,-based startup designs, develops and delivers solar and battery storage solutions for affordable housing communities. The company has already completed 25 installations in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area, including the first resiliency center in the District installed at the Maycroft Apartments affordable housing complex in partnership with PEPCO. Amidus Resilience plans to expand to more affordable housing resiliency centers, giving residents electricity to access to lighting, communications, food heating, ventilation, medicine refrigeration and charging capabilities for life-saving medical devices during power outages from extreme weather or other disruptions. In addition to helping under-resourced communities with access to clean and resilient energy, the startup’s projects will also rely on local trades for installation jobs. Amidus Resilience will work with Exelon to identify more affordable housing communities for resiliency centers in the District.

ATP-MD, LLC

ATP-MD, an African American-owned and Maryland-based startup, uses two innovative, patented and cost-effective processes that generate multiple environmental benefits using specially-bred, non-evasive plants (bio-crops) and their resulting biomass. The startup’s Vertical Bio-Crop Farms will capture carbon from large emission sources, and crops planted in brownfield sites and vacant lots will filter atmospheric pollutants and remove contaminants from the soil. ATP-MD then converts biomass into a variety of environmentally beneficial bio-products, including filler powders that make better-performing plastics, animal bedding, and biochars that improve soil productivity. In recent field tests, ATP-MD’s bio-crops have been shown to remove excess nutrients from Chesapeake Bay watershed farmland, helping to improve the health of the Bay’s ecosystem. Working with Exelon, ATP-MD plans to identify project sites in Baltimore’s under-resourced communities, helping to create a safer and healthier environment, creating new local manufacturing jobs and advancing the city’s ambitious climate and sustainability goals.