The office space at Greentown Labs
A Somerville startup accelerator – the aptly named Greentown Labs – is getting a little extra green, thanks to a clever little video that caught the attention of Small Business Administration (SBA) leaders in a nationwide competition.
Think of an accelerator as a little ecosystem for up-and-coming businesses. The SBA’s Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, now in its second year, awards cash prizes to accelerators that prove their merit and gives particular attention to those that fill a geographic gap.
Accelerators that win the competition also commit to quarterly reporting for one year, telling the SBA about metrics like jobs created, money raised, startups launched and corporate sponsors obtained. That information helps the agency create and maintain a database of accelerators and their impact.
Greentown Labs in Somerville was one of 80 nationwide, one of eight in New England and one of three in Massachusetts to win a $50,000 award under the SBA’s second annual Growth Accelerator Fund Competition, compared with just one New England-based accelerator to win the award last year.
“New England fared pretty well this year. When you think that we had 80 for the country, that’s why I was psyched we had three [in Massachusetts],” said Robert Nelson, the SBA’s district director for Massachusetts.
Last year, the agency recognized and awarded Smarter in the City, a Dudley Square-based accelerator, in the first iteration of the competition. The Roxbury organization was one of 50 nationwide to win the prize and the only one in Massachusetts to do so.
This year, the SBA ran a second installment of that contest, setting aside $4.4 million to award to 80 more startups nationwide. Besides Greentown Labs, the SBA also awarded two other Massachusetts accelerators: Fraunhofer TechBridge in Boston’s Fort Point neighborhood and InciteHealth in Cambridge.
“When you think of the businesses in there and what they’re trying to produce and what they are, it’s just mind-blowing. I think it’s just amazing when you look at these startups,” Nelson said.
The SBA award, Executive Vice President Mark Vasu said, “… helps support a really important initiative around manufacturing. We help our startups move from prototyping to first customers. In that stage where they’re moving into production, they need lots of help to connect to contract manufacturers and that whole infrastructure that will help them move into full commercial production.”
Greentown Labs offers its members affordable rents for office space to design their prototypes and warehouse space and machine shop tools to bring those designs to life. Importantly, the space also has a sort of cross-pollination effect, allowing budding entrepreneurs access to each other – so they can put their heads together, bounce ideas off one another, practice pitching and fine-tune their business plans.
‘Born Out of Necessity’
Greentown Labs was born four years ago, when four startups graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were in need of an affordable space to continue working on their prototypes. Though they found a space in East Cambridge, they soon moved to the Fort Point neighborhood when their first space was demolished to make way for a biotech company. Each time the organization moved, it doubled its space.
Today, Greentown Labs occupies about 33,000 square feet of space and plays host to more than 40 startups, all focused around some aspect of clean energy or the environment, from agriculture to battery storage to thermal power.
Vasu himself has been with Greentown Labs for two years. He joined when he was working on his own startup, a software program aimed at increasing residential energy efficiency.
“One of the things that differentiates us is our focus on solving the world’s biggest energy and environmental challenges,” Vasu said. “Clean tech is a big theme. The second big theme is hardware. Hardware is hard. Building prototypes is hard and takes time. To do that and to do that well, you need space, resources, equipment and ultimately funders to help you move through the different stages of development.”
In one corner, you might see a couple of guys working on indoor aquaponic gardens (Grove Labs), a seed of an idea that germinated when its founders started growing food in their MIT dorm room. Round the corner, and you’ll meet another person working on technology to improve space satellite propulsion (Accion).
Finally, its current location, nestled into Somerville’s Wart Two, is an enviable space that meets that “live, work, play” triad so many companies strive for these days.
“Greentown, early on, put out the word, ‘Come join us, come learn about us, come see us. We’re working on cool stuff and we want more people involved.’ It’s why I’m involved today,” Vasu said. “Feeling that energy, seeing that progress, seeing that sophistication and the kinds of solutions people were working on was very inspiring.”
