The Chilean company was one of the 40 cleantech startups selected worldwide and the first and only Latin American company in the history of the event to present its services to investors and other cleantech industry stakeholders at NREL 2021 in the United States.
Suncast had a successful participation in the NREL 2021 Industry Growth Forum (IGF), which was held virtually from April 20-22. The event, which celebrated its 26th anniversary, was organized by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the U.S. Department of Energy, and brought together the most select clean technology entrepreneurs in the United States.
The startup, which after an exhaustive selection process among 150 companies, was the favorite and became part of the 40 companies chosen worldwide. Thus, the Chilean technology firm became the only Latin American company to appear on the shortlist that presented its Solar Energy Prediction and Predictive Maintenance services to investors and other stakeholders in the clean technology industry at NREL 2021 in the United States.
Constanza Levicán, CEO of Suncast, was proud to represent Latin America in this competition. "NREL IGF is one of the main events for cleantech and energy startups in the U.S. We have received training and exposure for principal energy investors and experts. Then we started the preparation process, we received comments for the jury composed by industry experts and international investors. We had training sessions about fundraising, AWS services and pitching. Then, they organized mentoring sessions, the Suncast’s mentor was Brian Walsh, Head of WIND Ventures, who helped me to upgrade our investor deck and presentation to the final event."
The founder of the Chilean startup said that "This event opened to us the doors to the U.S. market because in less than a week we had 10 meetings with investment funds specialized in energy and energy companies to carry out the first pilots in the United States. Also, it helped positioning Suncast because we have been contacted by other actors that did not attend the event, just because we were selected in this event. Likewise, we should consider opening an office in that country in the medium term both to expand in that market and to access these specialized investors”.
Among the investment funds Constanza Levicán met with were: Itaru Shiraishi, Venture Capital of Energy & Environment Investment; Ken Vaughn, Director of Impact Investments of VertueLab; John Scull, Managing Director of Southern Cross Venture Partners; William Judd, Portfolio Management & Strategy Analyst of Cubico Sustainable Investments; Kareem Dabbagh, Managing Partner of VoLo Earth Ventures and Julie Gaudin, Open Innovation Analyst of EDF Inc.
Monali Mujumdar, Project Controller III at NREL, said about Suncast's participation in the event that "we at NREL are delighted that Suncast is the first company from Latin America at the IGF. We hope that their experience will drive more innovation in Chile and encourage other Latin American startups to participate in the IGF. We also hope that all the resulting connections will pave the way for stronger business relationships between the continents".
Meanwhile, for J.A. Colantonio, Project Manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), the virtual experience of the event will be a significant shift from traditional in-person networking functions to a new and modern way of connecting from around the world. "NREL's Industry Growth Forum is known for bringing together innovators and investors from across the cleantech ecosystem. Going virtual was a significant shift from traditional in-person networking functions to a new and modern way to connect from around the world. While we greatly missed seeing our friends, colleagues and partners in person at the IGF, we were very impressed and pleased by the global participation in the virtual event.”
In addition, Colantonio said that at the 2021 event "we had the highest number of investors registered for the 1-1 networking session and more attendees at the IGF than ever before. This is an encouraging reminder that the innovation ecosystem is persevering through incredibly challenging times and maintaining our momentum to lead the world towards a sustainable, low-carbon energy future."
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