The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management announced 13 teams as semifinalists for the Direct Air Capture (DAC) Pre-Commercial Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Prize. The DAC EPIC Prize provides $3.7 million in cash prizes to incubator teams that submit creative and impactful plans to support entrepreneurs and innovators in the DAC space.
The semifinalists, representing 10 states, will each receive $100,000 in cash prizes for their winning concepts in the initial Think It Phase of the prize.
Congratulations to our semifinalist teams:
- Activate Global, Inc., Berkeley, California
- LabStart Innovations Inc., Boulder, Colorado
- Airminers, San Mateo, California
- Black & Veatch; IgniteX DAC Accelerator, Overland Park, Kansas
- Newlab and Yale Carbon Containment Lab, Brooklyn, New York
- The University of Arizona Center for Innovation, Tucson, Arizona
- Tribuquent; TerraDAC Project, Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Carbon 2 Value Initiative; Greentown Labs, Urban Future Labs, Fraunhofer USA, Houston, Texas
- Columbia University; Carbontech Development Initiative, New York City, New York
- Expanding Frontiers, Brownsville, Texas
- Radicle Development Center, Malvern, Pennsylvania
- Cleantech Open Northeast, Somerville, Massachusetts
- gener8tor DAC Accelerator, Chicago, Illinois
The semifinalist teams will move on to the Move It Phase, where up to five finalists will each win $300,000 and move on to compete for a grand prize of $750,000 or a runner-up prize of $250,000.
The DAC EPIC Prize is part of the American-Made DAC Prizes, a suite of separate but connected prizes that were developed to address the numerous steps involved in moving an innovation from idea to market.
Read more about the semifinalists and learn about the DAC EPIC Prize competition on energy.gov.
