GE To Invest $63M in Home Energy Solutions Start-UPs

GE has announced the start of another phase in its "GE Ecomagination Challenge" initiative. Yesterday they and a group venture capital partners launched the second round of funding, titled the "Powering Your Home" phase, where they will be investing up to $63 million in 10 innovative home energy technology companies. Seen as one the Largest open innovation challenge of its kind, so far it has approximately 5,000 submissions from 74,000 innovators.

Ecomagination has seen GE and its partners invested or committed to invest $134 million in the home energy and power grid technology sector. The Challenge has also produced 22 new commercial partnerships and resulted in the acquisition of FMC-Tech, a smart grid technology from the first phase.

"The Challenge is now an established platform at GE. Looking ahead, we'll continue to accelerate growth through new partnerships and an additional commitment of $20 million to fund commercial pilots with innovators we have found through the Challenge,” said Mark Vachon, vice president, ecomagination.

"After one year and $134 million committed to new partners, we delivered on our goal to scale and commercialize the best new ideas through open innovation," said Beth Comstock, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, GE.

The $63 million in investments and commercial partnerships in this phase has received entries a range of consumer clean tech sectors such as solar, communications & software and building efficiency. GE said there are plans to launch the ecomagination Challenge in China, later this year. They are also plans to setup a $5 million fund in Europe to provide support for early stage ideas that need assistance getting off the ground.

To learn more about the challenge visit www.ecomagination.com.