Imperial College Climate Entrepreneurs Club’s (CEC) Climate Pre-accelerator is the world’s inaugural university-driven climate tech accelerator designed explicitly to help would-be student founders bring their climate innovation out into the world as they navigate their academic journey.

The program gives student founders every tool in hand to propose either an MVP or a solution that has the possibility to become a startup in the future by the end of the program.

Co-founders Elliot Queisser de Stockalper and Filippo Varini developed the idea for the pre-accelerator program after noticing that many students who wanted to make a difference and help solve climate change had entrepreneurial ideas that died on the vine: the pressures of needing to find work and repay student loans immediately after graduating meant many would-be founders never got started.

Their solution? Provide students with a support system for validating and testing their ideas, building a team and network, and pitching to institutional investors – a pre-accelerator.

102 students from over five universities participated in the Climate Pre-accelerators’ 4-month inaugural program, forming teams supported by a personal mentor and workshops led by climate tech professionals.

The program culminated in 13 student-led startups in sectors including the built environment, circular economy, energy and food, and natural capital presenting their innovative climate solutions to investors at a pitch day event. About 50% of these teams have gone on to build and launch a climate tech startup with spin-outs including Cyanoskin, Treeva, InXtech, Candela, Biofonic, Algain and Carboneye.

“We saw key areas for which early stage startups need support,” explains Abby Lam, Climate Pre-accelerator manager, “notably customer discovery to validate their ideas and pitch preparation. Most teams had concrete ideas, but lacked the experience, support and network. The help and guidance of mentors was one of the biggest strengths of the Climate Pre-accelerator.”

Aryan Shah is the co-founder and CEO of one of the program’s spin-outs, InXtech, a startup pioneering the next generation of high-endurance, zero-emissions autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) by combining the low-power, long-range capability of underwater gliding technology with the high-powered capacity of hydrogen-Fuel-Cells for better ocean data-collection.

He says Imperial’s Climate Pre-accelerator taught him how “to take a product from zero to one in an effective, yet flexible pace that allowed us to better get to know the problems we were solving and better understand our customers and what they want. Our belief that our startup may die if we don’t provide something that customers want and need was validated and we’ll keep following this idea to keep our innovations up to date and our technology to a high standard!

“Our experience was brilliant, we often had workshops, we were assigned mentors who helped us and even gave us some funding to kickstart our proof of concept design and build. We had a lot of fun whilst learning so much that made us better founders and more proud to work on our team.”

InXTech has already built their first product prototype, and won a Best Team award in accelerator Kickstart Global’s demo day.

Naman Sharma, co-founder of Farming 3.0, a startup that seeks to aid farmers’ decision-making on how to adapt their use of land in a changing climate, says his biggest takeaway from the Climate Pre-accelerator was “the focus on not only trying to build the best business but also to build a network, and think of longevity in other ways. If you just focus on the business you might not even do well as a business.”

Sharma adds that another key takeaway was that it’s very hard to achieve scale for any solution in climate tech because people don’t pay extra for climate-friendly solutions: “You have to create value for the price people pay, which often comes from cheaper technical solutions. If not, there might be no point in doing it. We should only work on a climate solution if we can implement it – it can only protect our planet if people are willing to adopt it.”

Tia Advani, co-founder of EcoElevate, which is investigating carbon capture solutions that rely on microbes as an innovative and more sustainable alternative to traditional carbon capture methods adds: “I acquired essential industry insights, developed networking and team-building skills, and honed my abilities in creating pitch decks and conducting market analysis. This project matters to me because I am deeply passionate about sustainability and making a positive impact on the planet. I believe in the potential of climate tech because our collective well-being is intrinsically tied to the health of our planet.”

Beyond the boundaries of its inaugural success, Imperial College’s Climate Pre-accelerator is trailblazing a transformative path for the academia of tomorrow. The initiative breathes life into a trend where academic institutions help cultivate the talent, ideas and entrepreneurialism needed to drive climate momentum.

“One bedrock of CEC’s triumph was the outpouring of support from the climate-conscious community. Every single mentor and partner and sponsor we have worked with has been so supportive of every entrepreneur in the cohort,” says Lam.

“In terms of vision, the most important learning for me was to create that community where people share ideas and transfer knowledge, and instead of every individual trying to save the planet on their own, working all together for that mission. Not me, us. My success is our success. Putting people together to work on solutions that can be implemented is the way to make an impact,” says Lam, “I envision a future where innovative climate solutions are integrated seamlessly into our daily lives, ensuring a thriving and resilient planet for future generations.”

As Imperial’s Climate Pre-Accelerator program enters its second year it hopes to create a movement that will spread to other universities — the drive, innovation and pioneering spirit of the program and its student founders has become a clarion call to work together to rise above the challenges of a changing climate. With the right support, the potential and zeal of the young can be unlocked to offer new solutions and hope against the unrelenting march of climate change.

As CEC contemplates how to encourage the replication of its pioneering program across universities, they are sparking a paradigm shift towards a trend where academic institutions use the knowledge, labs and networks at their disposal to foster innovation-driven change for the climate.