Amazonian Attention Bodes Well For Amogy, CEBIP

A newClean Energy Business Incubator Programclient is already attracting major league attention – including a significant buy-in by Amazon.

Brooklyn-basedAmogy Inc., a developer of ammonia-based, emission-free power solutions, has landed an undisclosed investment from the e-commerce giant. Amazon’s stake, announced in December, was made through the conglomerate’s $2 billionClimate Pledge Fund.

Amogy’s proprietary high energy-density power solution converts liquid ammonia into hydrogen gas, which powers a small fuel cell. Such cells could one day power large road vehicles and even oceangoing cargo freighters, keying new levels of sustainability and environmental stewardship in cargo shipping.

Amogy, which launched in November 2020, aims to debut a small demonstration vessel by early 2023, along with a fleet of various road test vehicles.

All of this is of course interesting to one of the world’s largest product distributors. Matt Peterson, head of the Climate Pledge Fund,told Canary Mediathat Amazon is keen on investing in the future of cargo shipping, “as we look at our own supply chain and the carbon footprint that is counted against us.”

It was also interesting to CEBIP, according to executive director David Hamilton, who said the new client – recruited to Stony Brook University’s “incubator without walls” about six months ago – was a prime example of the clean-energy incubator’s growth since its 2011 debut.

“CEBIP is more mature now than we were in the past,” Hamilton told Innovate Long Island. “We do a significantly better job vetting a company’s technology and team.

“By nature of our advanced vetting, we’re bringing in companies that are geared for quicker success than some past companies,” he added, and in investigating Amogy – founded by fourMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyPhDs– Hamilton and his staff knew they had a winner.

“They’re rockstars,” the exec said.

Hamilton’s not the only one who thinks so. Late in 2021, the streaking startup more than doubled itsBrooklyn Navy Yardsquare footage (surpassing 8,500 square feet) while earning $1 million in stateExcelsior Job Programtax credits, in exchange for a commitment to create 64 new jobs.

“In one year, they have raised so much money and hired so many people,” Hamilton noted. “It’s great to be associated with them.”

While CEBIP and SBU are not in direct competition with MIT or any other institution, attracting such a promising out-of-state startup – with such firm New England ties – was a true feather in the caps of the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Stony Brook’s decade-old clean-energy incubator, according to Hamilton.

“The founders are all MIT graduates,” he said. “And yet they set up their company in Brooklyn and they joined a Stony Brook incubator.

“I’m quite proud of the fact that the region has landed such high-profile entrepreneurs and such a high-profile company,” the CEBIP executive added. “This will help ensure an entrepreneurial ecosystem connecting the Northeast’s finest universities.”