Hive 50 Honors
For empowering the movement of world-changing building materials ideas from labs, white boards, and process maps to real-world, built-environment impact.
What You Need To Know
CertainTeed, Saint-Gobain’s North American construction brand, teamed up with Saint-Gobain NOVA, and cleantech incubator Greentown Labs to create an XPrize competition approach to developing technology that could disrupt the built environment’s value chain. Four startups—San Francisco–based Hyperframe; Inovues, based in Houston; Berkeley, Calif.–based Pre Framing Corp.; and Providence, R.I.–based Techstyle Materials—will participate in a six-month accelerator program that awards them each $25,000 in funding in addition to access to Greentown Labs’ and Saint-Gobain’s networks, testing facilities, etc. The kicker: partnership and/or investment from Saint-Gobain and CertainTeed by the end of the program.
Who’s Involved
Minas Apelian, vice president of internal and external venturing, Saint-Gobain; Greentown Labs CEO Dr. Emily Reichert.
Time Stamp
Saint-Gobain’s NOVA external ventures arm started in 2006. The InNOVAte 2019 Challenge was announced in January 2019, and attracted more than 110 applications from across the globe. Submissions were reviewed by a diverse panel and narrowed down to 12 finalists based on the startup’s ability to disrupt the built environment value chain. On May 30, at the InNOVAte Challenge Kickoff, the 12 finalists participated in a lightning pitch round and presented their ideas to a panel of judges and audience members for selection into the accelerator program. Four startups made the cut.
