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Clean Energy For All
Lovinia Reynolds
Lovinia Reynolds • May 13, 2025 • 6 min read

Announcing the Ten Companies in The Clean Fight’s Multifamily Affordable Housing Accelerator

Banner with logos of the 10 cohort companies

We are delighted to announce the ten groundbreaking companies that will make up the fifth edition of The Clean Fight’s Deployment Accelerator. This edition is dedicated to decarbonizing multifamily low-to-moderate income (LMI) and affordable housing in New York State. Within New York, state and city-level policies like Local Law 97 are putting increased pressure on multifamily LMI and affordable housing providers to retrofit their buildings with cleaner, more efficient technologies. But for many affordable housing providers, navigating retrofit projects is no small feat. The retrofit process is often complex and costly and affordable housing providers must juggle affordability, tenant comfort, and solution operations and maintenance, with limited bandwidth. The companies selected offer low-to-no upfront cost, ready-to-install solutions that can simplify the retrofit process for affordable housing providers–breaking down barriers to decarbonization. 

“To achieve Governor Hochul’s ambitious goal of 800,000 electrified or electrification-ready LMI households by 2030, we need building retrofit solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of New York’s LMI housing providers. We are excited to welcome our latest cohort of companies with solutions designed to make building retrofits easier, more accessible, and more affordable. Not only that, their solutions go beyond emissions reduction to provide tangible benefits like reduced energy costs, enhanced resiliency, and improved living space health and quality of life for residents” said The Clean Fight’s Managing Director Kate Frucher.

The ten companies selected for the fifth edition of The Clean Fight have best-in-class solutions that tackle common affordable housing retrofit hurdles. Their solutions range from cutting-edge building envelope and electrification technologies, to the latest building monitoring and management software and retrofit navigation platforms. The selected companies are:

  • Building Envelope Materials has developed a minimally invasive retrofit insulation system for large multifamily buildings. The system reduces thermal energy use by 20 to 30% and allows envelope upgrades without resident relocation.
  • Conservation Labs offers a non-invasive sensor and reporting platform that provides high resolution water and plumbing maintenance insights to reduce water, energy, and maintenance costs.
  • Copper develops battery-integrated appliances that make home electrification easier and more affordable. Their induction stove features built-in energy storage and plugs into a standard 120V outlet, allowing households to upgrade to efficient electric cooking without costly electric panel upgrades, while maintaining reliability during power outages.
  • DaisyChain Energy acts as a utility for building owners, enabling them to purchase electricity at wholesale rates while securely sub-metering residents’ electricity usage and charging them based on individual consumption. The savings in electricity rates can then be used to finance decarbonization upgrades, further lowering the energy-cost burden for residents and housing providers.
  • Dextall combines cutting-edge design software with next-generation prefabricated panels. Their fully integrated prefabricated panel system shortens construction timelines, reduces labor needs 20-fold, and exceeds energy standards by 40%.
  • Embue’s software platform turns any apartment building into a smart building by monitoring temperature and humidity in real time, allowing for visibility, control, management, and automation of every space in the building to reduce energy costs and improve efficiency.  
  • Enerdrape harnesses the power of shallow geothermal energy–without the need of a drill–using its innovative geothermal panel technology to transform underground surfaces, such as parking walls, into clean, local, and renewable heat sources.
  • Gradient designs and manufactures innovative cold-climate window heat pumps. Its heat pump technology operates on 120v and combines the high performance of a mini-split with the simple, hassle-free installation of a window air conditioner, providing affordable and sustainable heating and cooling.
  • Rock Rabbit provides AI-powered software solutions that make it fast, easy, and reliable to find, navigate and claim incentives for green building upgrades. 
  • Thalo Labs’ technology transforms HVAC systems into intelligent, connected systems by leveraging advanced sensors and machine learning to monitor and diagnose equipment in real time–reducing emissions, improving performance, lowering operational costs for building owners, and making decarbonization accessible at scale.
Image of the 10 cohort company logos

The goal of The Clean Fight’s Deployment Accelerator is to facilitate the adoption of high-impact climate solutions in New York State, to drive an accessible energy transition and create economic opportunity for all. We do this by sourcing proven solutions from around the world, conducting high-touch matchmaking with housing customers and capital partners, and providing expert insight into navigating the New York State market. Cohort companies are also eligible to apply for grant funding of up to $100,000 per company to support demonstration projects in New York State, while housing providers are eligible for  technical assistance funding. To date, The Clean Fight has helped more than 50+ companies scale their solutions in New York State, and program alumni have secured $800M+ in follow-on funding, deployed 5,000+ follow-on projects, and created 900 jobs in manufacturing, construction, and technology.

We have some impressive stakeholders in our corner. We’re collaborating with leaders in the affordable housing market–the Climate Friendly Homes Fund administered by The Community Preservation Corporation, and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development–who bring a wealth of experience in financing and advising multifamily affordable housing retrofits, as well as housing partners AHC, Paths, and Riseboro.

We’re also working with key industry experts who will provide technical support and insight, including Bright Power, Con Edison, Cadence OneFive, KOW Building Consultants, Sustainable Comfort, and Taitem Engineering.

Our fantastic set of capital partners includes Aligned Climate Capital, Amalgamated Bank, Broadscale, NY Green Bank, NYCEEC, Silicon Valley Bank, and Spring Bank, and we are supported by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and U.S. Economic Development Administration (U.S. EDA).

We know that technology is just one piece of the puzzle in easing the pathway to efficient, clean housing for all. We’re excited to champion solutions that engender a more accessible, climate-ready future and support the dedicated affordable housing providers that are essential to preserving New York’s unique, vibrant communities.

If you’re a housing provider, engineer, or capital provider in the multifamily affordable housing ecosystem interested in collaborating, email lovinia.reynolds@newenergynexus.com for more information on opportunities. To stay up-to-date on program developments and public events, sign up for our newsletter.