As one of two Green Giants headquartered in Ottawa, CIG now is scouring for seed funding
CleanInnoGen Energy Solutions (CIG) is a pioneering green-energy startups that hoping to boost scale-up bids with help from a Toronto-based innovation hub.
Co-founder Victoria Xu is one of 10 entrepreneurs from across Canada taking part in the RBC Women in Cleantech Accelerator hosted by the MaRS Discovery District. CIG team will work with business mentors, investment advisors, and advisers from federal research labs and federally funded R&D programs such as Ottawa’s CanmetENERGY in this year-long program.
"It is not that easy to commercialize science like this." Victoria Xu - co-founder of CleanInnoGen Energy Solutions
While the technology has been in development for years, it’s still unproven in the real world. “Now it’s time to get it out of the lab, to commercialize it,” Xu says. “But it is not that easy to commercialize science like this.”
Like many cleantech startups, a lack of capital remains the biggest hurdle to achieving a commercial breakthrough. CleanInnoGen now is scouring for seed funding that will take at least a “few million dollars” to fund a pilot project with an industry partner, but finding well-heeled investors willing to back an unproven commodity is an ongoing challenge.
Source: Ottawa Business Journal