Though Evergreen Climate Innovations is based in Chicago, we are dedicated to uncovering the best innovations and startups from all over the Midwest region. As we source our deal flow pipeline for the 2018 investment program, Evergreen Climate Innovations employees are hitting the road to expand our reach into the region. This is the second installment of a multi-part series to find the best and the brightest cleantech entrepreneurs. Read Part 1. UMSL Accelerate Demo Day with Ameren Great event at the Ameren Accelerator Demo Day. It was great to hear how so many different startups were able to leverage the resources from Ameren, UMSL Accelerate, and Capital Innovators to grow their businesses. Our partners at UMSL were particularly helpful with putting me in touch with new potential partners. Skandalaris Center On Friday morning I met with Emre Toker, Director of the Skandalaris Center. The Skandalaris Center provides mentorship, investments, and grants to new innovative companies with technology developed out of WashU. I am excited to strengthen this relationship to make sure that the best cleantech startups from WashU are able to work with Evergreen Climate Innovations. ITEN Mary Louise Helbig is the new executive director of ITEN and she immediately impressed me with ITEN’s incredible contributions to the ST. Louis tech ecosystem. ITEN is an early stage tech accelerator that matches companies to mentors to walk through their tailored curriculum guiding new companies through the business model canvas. ITEN also has an Entrepreneur in Residence program providing early-stage startups with key experience and support. We look forward to seeing all the successful startups coming out of ITEN’s programming. CIC St. Louis AT CIC St. Louis I met with Kim Plank, general manager at CIC. Kim provided incredible context to the work that CIC does to provide space and support for innovative businesses. She also helped me get a better sense of all the activity in the Cortex district and how it fits together. BioGenerator Met with Eric Gulve, President of BioGenerator and head of their investment activities. As another non-profit investor Evergreen Climate Innovations and BioGenerator have a lot in common. Focused on helping St. Louis area companies, Biogenerator has invested 15.2 M and those companies have raised another $462 M. They also have a variety of programs and funding mechanisms to help de-risk and support companies at earlier stages. For example, their office space and labs were used by over 200 companies in the past year. I look forward to hearing more about the successes coming out of BioGenerator.