2024 Awardees

Cella Mineral Storage Inc.: Cella's technology aims to provide the safest and most permanent way to store captured CO2 by transforming it into rock deep underground. Existing geologic carbon storage methods are geographically limited and entail decades-long monitoring and liability costs related to leakage risk. Cella eliminates leakage risk by leveraging natural processes that turn carbon dioxide into a carbonate mineral. Cella's advance accelerates this process to just a few years by using a proprietary approach to injecting captured CO2 and water into volcanic rock. This achieves a 10x improvement in well efficiency over existing mineralization injections. The company serves both hard-to-abate and carbon removal sectors as a storage partner, where the firm sold 3,500 tCO2 of carbon removal credits to Shopify, Stripe, and Watershed through partnerships with nine different Direct Air Capture (DAC) companies. list of companies

Conduit, Inc. uses advanced LiDAR imaging and comprehensive building data to rethink HVAC system design, driving fast design while ensuring accuracy. This technology helps residential HVAC contractors enhance efficiency, increase conversion rates, and reduce callbacks, while ensuring proper design of energy efficient and electric solutions to tackle the estimated 10% of U.S. energy use that stems from residential heating and cooling. The Rocket Fund grant will support the development of workflow automation tools, focusing on duct evaluation and design, critical for the decarbonization of residential buildings. Over the next 12 months, this new funding will support not only user research and field tests with CA-based contractors, but also leveraging the expertise of technical consultants to refine and commercialize the product.

Emission Free Generators: EFG is an emission free generator that creates hydrogen-on-demand from a novel powder contained in a reusable fuel cartridge. The amount of hydrogen produced every few seconds is immediately converted into electricity, completely independent of fossil fuels, grid power, solar and without creating toxic fumes and CO2. Our proprietary smart technology is safe, silent, portable and easy to operate for generating constant power indoors and out, for household, recreation and business environments including remote sites. The Rocket Fund award will pay for engineering and design services to produce our consumer-compliant fuel cartridge.

Lite-1: Canadian based Lite-1 has developed a novel biotechnology platform leveraging the functions of microorganisms to biomanufacture 100% sustainable colorants to replace current organic and highly toxic synthetic chemicals The core innovation offers customizable color solutions to meet the specific needs of a wide range of industry players from cosmetics, plastics and inks, to food and paint, Using emerging technologies like synthetic biology and biomanufacturing, the company grows their colorants in a circular production system utilizing waste as feedstock.

Natrion Inc.: Natrion's lithium solid ionic composite (LISICTM) solid-state electrolyte drops into rechargeable lithium battery production lines to enable the assembly of solid-state batteries with over 50% more energy density, zero flammability risks, and 20% lower cost. LISIC-based batteries can be leveraged by battery manufacturers and automakers towards the construction of safe, affordable, long-lasting, and recyclable stationary energy storage and electric vehicles. The Rocket Fund grant will help finance the certification of LISIC-based batteries for use in consumer and commercial products

Planet A Energy uses novel concentrating optics to capture high-temperature sunlight directly to a bed of low-cost and non-toxic black sand. The system stores the energy for days to months, solving the long-duration energy storage problem for utilities and enabling decarbonization of high-temp industrial and agricultural processes, even those far from the power grid. The Rocket Fund grant will fund acquisition of the optical components for the first full-scale shipping-container module prototype.

RenewH2O developed a highly efficient, compact, and customizable wastewater treatment system with five proprietary technologies that include: an interceptor for self-cleaning coarse solids filtration and dewatering; a refiner, operating as a continuous backwash media filter for fine solids filtration; a bio-refiner as a bio filter for nutrient removal; a fine-refiner working as a continuous backwash tertiary filter; and the flow-by-wire, offering real-time process regulation and remote monitoring. Compared to conventional processes, the system has a 75% lower footprint, 47% lower CAPEX, 78% less operational energy demand, and 65% lower GHG emissions. The system can process 0.5 MGD (million gallons per day) in the space of two 40-foot shipping containers and can be scaled up for higher capacity. The Rocket Fund award will support the system's full-scale validation in California.

Sensible Photonics' advanced optical fiber sensing platform delivers real-time temperature, acoustic and chemical measurements for energy assets, enabling proactive prediction of required maintenance and imminent failures. Designed to improve reliability, operational efficiency, safety, and enhance equipment lifespan, the simplified sensing technology enables multiparameter sensing at 10x less cost than competing technologies. This technology is designed for monitoring distribution transformers and energy storage systems as initial markets The Rocket Fund grant will pay for production and testing of the company's minimum viable product.

Standard Potential is commercializing FreeForm technology, which minimizes both materials and manufacturing in sodium-ion batteries for long-duration energy storage. This process advancement reduces gigafactory plant cost and area footprint by 40%, manufacturing time by 2-4 weeks, and facilitates a transformative <$0.05/kWh levelized cost of storage for stationary installations. Standard Potential will provide energy storage systems for grid and utility applications. Strategic support from the Caltech Rocket fund will enable pilot safety testing of individual battery cells in California.

Syntaxa, Inc.: Syntaxa creates novel microbial biopesticides for sustainable agriculture. Syntaxa developed a transformative nanoparticle encapsulation technology stemming from custom designed microbial genomes that are built at scale through automation. The nanoparticle formulation is non-living, encapsulating multi-modal pest control properties designed to minimize crop losses, enhance efficacy, and delay the onset of resistance, while ensuring long-lasting field performance and cost-effective manufacturing. By combining traits from distinct, pre-approved biological control agents into this nanoparticle formulation, Syntaxa aims to create the first-in-class biological pesticides capable of maintaining high pest-killing efficacy over prolonged application cycles. The company plans to partner with agricultural input, manufacturing, and distribution companies to bring this innovation to market. The Rocket Fund award will support third-party validation through pilot greenhouse experiments in California, advancing Syntaxa's multi-potency biopesticide prototypes towards field trial readiness.