>> thanks for joining us today for th the first clean tech accelerator in san francisco. my name is tim nadeau from blue practice. we are going to try to close here at 2:00. business is open at greenstart and our four start-ups have a full agenda for the rest of the day so we'll try to move things along as best as possible. but for now, welcome, and really have the pleasure first to introduce to you, managing director of greenstart, mitch

lowe, to say a few words. mitch? [applause] >> all right. hello, thank you. welcome. it's an exciting day for greenstart. it's an exciting day for the companies that are in our program, and it's an exciting day for san francisco. we're super pumped to finally formally introduce greenstart to the world. so thank you for being here. thank you, mayor lee, for being here. we have mentors here. we have our interior designer, one of our interior designers, kimberly ryder, who put this space together in less than seven weeks, which is really astounding. thank you all. there's a lot of people here who have been super supportive and are here to help. we started greenstart because we believe that reducing the use of fossil fuels is the defining problem of our generation.

and the answer is innovation. we need to innovate around expanding the use of clean energy. we need to innovate around energy efficiency and where does that innovation come from? over the last hundred years, especially in san francisco, especially in silicon valley, entrepreneurs have proven they're the heros that can make disruptive, powerful change. we want to nurture that. we want to accelerate that. we want to create that ecosystem right here in san francisco. so we're a start-up accelerator for clean tech. we're trying to make start-ups that are focusing on renewable energy and energy efficiency more success. there's four pieces of that. there's funding. we make an investment somewhere between $20,000 and $100,000 in each. we're a combination of a small venture firm and start-up academy bolted together. we then introduce the start-ups

that are in the program to other investors to help them raise more money from great investors to move forward. the second piece of the program is mentoring. so me, dylan mcdonald, dave graham, the three partners here, we've been starting companies since our early 20's. we've had some really nice successes. we've had some failures and have learned from both. there's a lot of wisdom and knowledge that we want to help impart to the companies going through the program. it's not about us. we're here and full-time and all in on it, but there's another 35 mentors and growing that are breathing life into what we're doing. these are highly accomplished entrepreneurs that have started businesses. these are experts. these are investors. and they're committing time. they're coming in on a weekly basis and doing workshops and sitting down and dedicating time and attention to try and help the start-ups that go through the greenstart program thrive. third piece is we provide resources. start-ups, by definition, are

resource constrained. we try to connect them with people and organizations to help them move faster and as part of all of that, the goal is, they get connections. they come out of the program and have a network of people that want to help them be successful. we're going to do this three times a year, which is a little bit crazy. most start-up accelerators do it once or twice a year. we'll do it three months, three times a year starting every september, every january, every may, and that will continue. we have an audacious goal that we want to help launch more 500 start-ups here in san francisco in the first 10 years. we might need your help to get that all happening. we chose san francisco because it's widely recognized as the greenest city in the world and it's right in silicon valley which is the hart of starting companies and we want to work to make san francisco the center of

gravity for clean energy companies. that translates to making a difference in the world. it translates to job creation and economic activity. we want to do that all right here. there's four companies in first program. we're super excited that they're here. we're joking that it's harder to get into greenstart than into stanford or harvard. we had 130 applications and through a rigorous process, we narrowed it down to four. we're going to invite them up to say a few words. this formally kicks off today. it's a 12-week program. it's going to be high intensity and keep an eye out for these companies because they're going to be out there changing the world. thanks for being here, guys. [cheers and applause] >> thank you, mitch. and now i've got the great honor to introduce mayor lee, whose commitment to clean tech and jobs to san francisco. it's a testament that you're

here. welcome. mayor lee: welcome, tim. thank you, and welcome, everybody. welcome to the greenest city. it's in the world, right? we just have north america but i'll accept the world. mitch, congratulations. thank you for starting greenstart right here in downtown san francisco. and it's amazing, our was on of workforce development and our department of environment, we are very much loving today because we've been talking with clean tech for a long time and everybody asks, when's the right time for this to start happening? well, now. and i love this term "accelerator" because we don't have time to waste. we need innovation right now if we're going to reduce carbon emissions below the 1990's levels, by 20%. we need that now and we need people to have that vision in a very real way. it's more than a vision. we have to have those examples

out there and not only to maintain our world class status of being the cleanest site, but i think we need to use our city as the guiding post for the rest of the country, that we can actually do it here and use innovation, support the companies that want to the start here, grow them here, and then nurture them to stay here because one of the things i'm looking at is when you stay here, those jobs that you're starting out right now, the one or two jobs, they're going to go in the hundreds as your business models take off. so i love this whole idea of accelerating this opportunity and having these four firms kind of come out of a really good competition of 130 firms. but it isn't just the physical space that they're starting here right now of the it is what mitch said earlier, where they're going to introduce them to resources, introduce them to relationships they haven't had and then, i think, been forewarning the four companies as i saw some of their initial

products, this december they get to make their first real pitch to angel investors and the capital investors who want to take a look at what they have. but these are the four that have already presented a high level of promise already with their product innovation, with their energy. and they covered areas like smarter shades. get ready for your pitch because they'll explain smarter shade, or the newest combination of diesel fuel that's more efficient, or the two companies that are helping you, either as an individual or as a small company, measure your energy efficiency, your energy consumption, so that you can begin as a base to understand how you are going to do better in monitoring your energy or using a smart plug to let you know what's going on throughout your building. these companies are innovative, they're smart, they're using clean technology. that's the industry that we're aggressively inviting into our city right now as we speak and

it will begin with these four companies, mitch, and we're going to not only watch them grow, we're going to work with you to make sure that we, as a city, can support your efforts here by also creating relationships they don't have today, as well. so behind greenstart, there's going to be the city and county of san francisco. this will be a department environment who can introduce someone like silva tech into our fleet, because they're struggling with doing better than just biodiesel. all of these companies so lono, silva techs, 10 rat, and watt, those are the four companies that will introduce themselves. i'm excited to be the mayor right now because this is the start of many, many other names that you're going to mispronounce like i did, because when they start out, they haven't gotten the cool names yet. they will evolve their cool names to introduce themselves to

the rest of the world. and when they do, watch out. the clean tech industry will grow like the dickens. they'll really accelerate. because everybody is looking now for how to reduce emissions, how to really contribute seriously to our environment, making a better place. that's what san francisco is. we're going to use this innovation but we're going to also invite them in the most responsible thing that these young folks want to do and that is to save our planet, save our energy, reduce carbon emissions, be part of the smartest city in the world to do better. it's our urban settings that will contribute significantly in the next few decades. whether or not we're going to survive as a better planet and it's going to happen in the urban settings. it's going to happen in downtown san francisco. congratulations, mitch. congratulations to your sharing the vision. i don't mind all the mistakes that go on here because then we get to recover and do even better.

in the spirit of innovation, we don't mind the mistakes happen. but the investors, when they come in, they're going to put serious money behind all the best ideas and they're going to want that relationship with san francisco, as well. we are still the seat of innovation but also the city of doers. we're going to do this with you and congratulations. i want to invite all the companies up to make their pitch. thank you. [applause] >> please join us. >> thanks, mayor lee. i'm the c.e.o. and founder of 10 rate technologies. we make wireless companies for the energy efficiency environment. our first item is a wi-fi based outlet adapter that lets you control the energy use of your buildings at the outlet. buildings can save 20% to 30%

just from the outlet. so spank the grid by starting small at the outlet. i think it's really important to say that what attracted us to greenstart was not just the three musketeers of mitch and dylan and dave, but the culture of being here in san francisco. this is -- san francisco has always been a boomtown and it's a welcoming community to entrepreneurs so we're happy to be here. thanks for having us. [applause] >> hi, thank you so much for being here. i'm virginia classmore, co-founder of silva techs. we've develops renewable fuel, injecting renewable biomass, non-toxic ingredients to diesel fuel to make it go longer and better and reduce emotions. we have our product ready to be used for beta testing and i'll be taking mayor lee on his support there.

we're very excited to be here to accelerate and really get to market sooner because we want to make that big impact that the world needs. so we have access to the amazing mentors out there and all the support that greenstart offers and we're really excited. thank you very much for being here and helping them support this. [applause] >> my name is mike stacy, c.e.o. and co-founder of smarter shade. smarter shade is a new technology that allows any window to tint on command. our technology is different from other smart glass technologies and doesn't require electrical or chemical reaction to create the shading effect. our technology costs significantly less than what's out there now and can deliver on energy efficiency benefits promised by other technologies. we're happy to be part of greenstart because we believe this gives us access to an incredible investor community to accelerate our business. thank you. [applause]

>> thank you, mayor lee, and thank you to the greenstart team. mitch, it's amazing to be here. i'm the chief energy officer of watt. we are bringing democracy and transparency to the energy industry and ending what we call the energy disconnect. we're an early stage company and we love being here. i came all the way from maine, 3,000 miles, to be in this amazing space. i want to say thank you. you can check us out at wa.tt. thank you. >> thank you to everyone. i think now i'd like to turn everyone's attention to the large green ribbon hanging between the two central pillars where we'd like to do an official commencement cutting of the ribbon and following that, we'd invite everyone to walk around the tables up here. we have signage for each of the

companies, if you'd like to take a little bit of time to learn about the companies and see the technology that they have. [cheers and applause]