Boston is often heralded as one of the top national destinations for startups. Earlier this year, a report by the US Chamber of Commerce and 1776 ranked Boston as the number 1 U.S. city to foster innovation and entrepreneurship. This makes sense, the city boasts one of the best educational ecosystems in the world, which translates to a highly educated workforce, thriving biotech industry, and great place to live. While Boston is a natural starting point for entrepreneurs to found and launch new ventures, it’s harder (and more expensive) to scale them there.
This is why my cofounder Daniel Cavanaugh and I started our company, Clean Crop Technologies (“Clean Crop”) in the Pioneer Valley. Clean Crop is solving crop loss at the source with its Clean Current product, a fully automated, electric, and dry cold plasma solution that removes seedborne pathogens before they infect plants in farmer fields.This often forgotten part of the Commonwealth boasts different, but equally compelling, benefits to young companies. In 2019, our team was initially located at the co-laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where we utilized the Institute for Applied Life Science (IALS) Innovation Fund and tested and validated our first prototype. Naturally graduating from IALS, we decided to move to Holyoke. Why Holyoke? I get asked this question a lot. There are many good reasons.
First, we have affordable room to grow. Like most industrial decarbonization companies, success means our technology gets bigger, and quickly requires more space. While the average rental cost in the Boston area hovers around $30-$63/sqft, this number is closer to $12-$21/sqft in the Pioneer Valley. We have built out a robust 14,000 square foot purpose built facility that includes an R&D laboratory, in-house rapid prototyping machine shop, biological laboratory capabilities, and the world’s first cold plasma Seed Tolling Facility.
Second, we have access to a ready-made advanced manufacturing ecosystem that we can partner with. Springfield, the city just south of Holyoke, was famously the birthplace of the US defense industry in the late 18th century, and that legacy persists today with a strong ecosystem of advanced engineering, materials, and machine shops supporting the aerospace industry. Several of these shops were able to provide critical parts for our machines that would otherwise have had to ship from across the country or internationally. Leveraging the tribal knowledge in this ecosystem has been invaluable at multiple points in rapidly iterating on our core technology.
Third, we have access to a compelling talent pipeline through both the Five College Consortium and technical community colleges like the Springfield Technical Community and Holyoke Community Colleges. Fourth and finally, we have a fantastic partner with local utility Holyoke Gas & Electric (HG&E), who provides material incentives for new entrants to the city, including their Economic Development Discount (a 10% discount off of natural gas and electric bills for a period of three years). As an electro-chemical company, this isn’t just a utility discount for the organization, but also a material decrease for a primary input and variable cost for Clean Crop’s core service offering. Additionally, HG&E’s electric mix is 56% renewable and 95% carbon-free, primarily because 56% of their electricity is sourced from a local hydro-renewable plant. This allows them to provide clean energy at a fraction of the price as other utilities.
Over the past twelve months, I’ve been so excited to welcome and be introduced to a number of peer startups to the Pioneer Valley and I’m starting to see an emerging green chemistry innovation cluster in Massachusetts that is accelerating America’s clean energy transition. Our team has mapped out the initial ecosystem of the cluster, which you can explore via the interactive map below:
Looking forward to the continuing evolution of the startup ecosystem in Massachusetts, I was thrilled to see Governor Healy’s recent announcement for the Mass Leads Act, which will launch a $1 billion, 10-year climatetech initiative and outlines plans to position Massachusetts a global hub for the life sciences and climatetech that will benefit every region of the state. Her team has emphasized that regional tech hubs across the state are the catalyst to accelerate and amplify growth, and that these investments are responsible for supporting economic development to promote equity, affordability, and competitiveness in STEM opportunities statewide.
As we look forward to this next chapter of Massachusetts leading climatetech innovation on the national stage, I hope that Western Mass will play a pivotal role as Mass Leads.