The Clean Fight Welcomes 20 Customer and Capital Partners in the Fight to Decarbonize New York
Introducing our Customer partners Bright Power, City of Ithaca, Con Edison, Fairstead, Handel Architects, JOE NYC, L+M, RiseBoro, Steven Winter Associates and our Capital partners, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Broadscale, Camber Creek, Community Preservation Corporation, Energy Impact Partners, Fifth Wall, Generate Capital, MetaProp, NYCEEC, Obvious Ventures, and Perl Street. NYC Housing Partnership is joining as a strategic partner.
Our latest group of partners are leaders in their field, unafraid of tackling the thorny issue of how to decarbonize the mass of New York’s non-luxury commercial and residential buildings. These are the hardest to crack but critical to decarbonize, not only due to their disproportionate number, but because they are more likely to house frontline and underserved communities, where the greening of buildings not only creates climate impacts, but outsized health, comfort, and savings impacts.
On the cutting-edge of equitable building decarbonization, our customer partners are already implementing innovative and scalable solutions to bring New York’s buildings to net zero, while creating replicable blueprints for the rest of the market to follow. We’re excited by their expertise and commitment to our collective mission of ‘Decarbonizing New York’s Buildings in a New York Minute’ in a just and inclusive manner.
This year our Capital partners include both investment and financing partners. Impressive in their unrivaled leadership in the field, this combination of partners is enabling startups to not only grow their companies through direct investment, but also critically, to speed adoption of their solutions through project financing and lending for startups and customers.
This collaboration between the companies in Cohort 2 and our partners will create a blueprint for implementing cost-effective climate solutions, essential for achieving New York’s climate goals, and paving the way towards a net-zero future.
We are currently in the process of selecting companies for Cohort 2. Our focus at The Clean Fight is to speed adoption of ready-to-scale solutions, and therefore those chosen will sit at the nexus between market interest and climate & social impact. The 8-10 growth-stage companies selected will be provided with tailored support service, bespoke customer and investor introductions and relationship-building, and the ability to apply for up to $250,000 each in grants to fund resulting partnership agreements.
We are fortunate to have these partners on board at a time when there is renewed support for decarbonization efforts at a federal level, as well as heightened pressure for high-impact solutions to climate change, making this a transformative period for innovation across the U.S. and beyond.
Read what our partners are saying:
"Bright Power is committed to eliminating negative environmental impacts of buildings while maximizing their utility and value and improving the health, comfort, and productivity of their occupants. Founded and headquartered in NYC, it was natural for us to join The Clean Fight to develop replicable solutions to decarbonize our city. Together, we can create a more equitable and sustainable city with high-quality, healthy, comfortable, and efficient buildings for all." Jeffrey Perlman, President, Founder & CEO, Bright Power
“The City of Ithaca announced in 2019 its intention to become the first carbon neutral city in the United States. A vital part of our strategy is the decarbonization of the city’s entire building stock. To achieve this ambitious goal, we decided to partner with The Clean Fight, so we can help guide entrepreneurs in the development of paradigm-shifting technologies and business models. We are confident we can find in this cohort the solutions we need to implement our vision.” Luis Aguirre-Torres, Director of Sustainability, City of Ithaca
“Climate change requires us to examine everything we do through a new lens. The Community Preservation Corporation is proud to share our expertise and commitment to financing high performance multifamily housing as a capital partner of The Clean Fight: Mass Market Building Edition. We look forward to collaborating with the Cohort 2 founders to forge innovative pathways to equitable building decarbonization.” Sadie McKeown, EVP of Construction Lending and Initiatives, The Community Preservation Corporation (CPC)
“Energy Impact Partners is proudly head-quartered in New York and has invested in many great companies decarbonizing our built environment. We are excited to partner with The Clean Fight on this critical initiative.” Cassie Bowe, Principal, Energy Impact Partners
“The built environment offers an incredible opportunity to build lasting companies and must be a key focus to solve climate. I’m excited to support this cohort of companies in their journey.” Matt Eggers
“We are thrilled to be involved for a second year in a row in The Clean Fight; leveraging technology to discover new ways to enable healthy and sustainable buildings is a core tenet of our mission at MetaProp. Our future climate depends on programs like these.” Zach Aarons, Co-Founder & General Partner, MetaProp
“NYCEEC is proud to join ‘The Clean Fight: Mass Market Buildings Edition’ to support our vision of energy efficiency and clean energy financing for buildings to achieve scale and be accessible to all.” Curtis Probst, CEO, NYCEEC
“Climate change is a hardware problem. Upgrading our hardware assets requires developing and financing clean energy projects locally at scale. Project development and project finance go hand in hand. We are super excited to be a financing partner of The Clean Fight program and help innovative hardware companies like Cohort 1’s Radiator Labs and enVerid to get rid of our existing polluting assets with the clean ones.” Tooraj Arvajeh, CEO & Co-Founder, Perl Street
"Climate change represents an existential threat for every New Yorker. As an organization serving the most vulnerable in our community since 1973, it is our duty to take action. We're honored to join these 19 other extraordinary organizations to do our part to decarbonize New York." Scott Short, CEO, Riseboro
“We at Steven Winter Associates believe that the adoption of practical, technology-enabled solutions in the real-estate market will help improve workforce growth, support low-to-moderate income housing, and ultimately underpin a low- to no-carbon future of the built environment. The Clean Fight represents a great opportunity for New York’s industry leaders to tackle large-scale building decarbonization challenges by meeting at the nexus of collaboration, innovation, and technology.” Steven Winter Associates, Inc.
Stay tuned for the Fall, when we will announce the official selection of The Clean Fight’s Building Edition.
If you’re interested in learning more, get in touch with us at hello@thecleanfight.com.