There’s a new science accelerator at the Delaware Innovation Space

The new Delaware Innovation Space accelerator, Science Inc., fully launched its first cohort of 10 startups this week.

The accelerator is for (fittingly) science-based startups that will participate in five months of weekly programming, mentoring and coaching. A Science Inc. Demo Day will be held in June for each company to pitch to investors and partners.

Science Inc. has received national recognition and was awarded $1.5 million from the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build to Scale Venture Challenge program and its Office of Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

“The ten companies in this first cohort include a wide array of diverse science startups working to improve and enhance our everyday lives by curing or mitigating disease with new therapeutics, curbing climate change through carbon capture and renewables, and improving water quality and other industrial processes,” said Bill Provine, CEO of Delaware Innovation Space, in a statement. “Each company in this first cohort has the potential for enormous business impact. I’m excited to be able to witness and help accelerate the growth of these companies with the support, wisdom, and expertise of the Delaware Innovation Space community.”

The 10 startups are:

• Breatheasy, led by Dalton Signor, is developing smoking cessation therapeutics.
• Carbon Reform, led by Jo Norris and Nick Martin, is decentralizing carbon capture utilization technology for the commercial heating industry.
• Clean Valley Bio-filtration Technologies CIC, led by Nicholas LaValle, Damir Allen, Timothy Edmonds, and Roya Aghighi, is commercializing clean tech solutions for water and air filtration.
• Elyte Energy, led by Jalaal Hayes and Cherese Winstead Casson, is focused on commercializing clean power supply and providing services to off-grid communities.
• Extrave Bioscience, led by Joshua Selsby and Matt Hudson, is focused on the delivery of biomolecules in order to address the burden of neuromuscular diseases.
• GeneLancet Biosciences, led by Minghong Zhong, owns a novel lgRNA-guided gene editing platform for developing cures for chronic HBV, HIV and monogenic diseases such as Alzheimer disease.
• HARTLON, led by Jack Scanlon and Jeffrey Politis, specializes in a novel drug delivery technology for the treatment of coronary heart disease and peripheral artery disease.
• Lectrolyst, led by Greg Hutchings, is developing a novel chemical synthesis platform which uses electricity and carbon waste from renewable resources to create essential chemicals.
• MCET Technologies, led by Sagar Doshi, Erik Thostenson and Dan Bryan, is developing and commercializing an innovative sensing technology enabled by advanced composite and nanostructured materials.
• SAS Nanotechnologies, led by Sumedh Surwade, is developing a smart microcapsule technology with self-healing properties that enable solutions in areas such as corrosion, lubricants, sensors and agriculture.

The Delaware Innovation Space is the entrepreneurship-boosting nonprofit created through a partnership between DuPont, the University of Delaware and the State of Delaware and is located at the Experimental Station in Wilmington. Its First Fund investment program looking to speed the funding process for science startups launched in 2o19. This January, First Fund doubled its investment threshold for science startups from up to $75,000 to up to $150,000.

Applications for Science, Inc.’s fall 2021 cohort will open this spring.