URBAN-X BY MINI WELCOMES PROMISING CLIMATE TECH INNOVATORS TO ITS NEWEST COHORT

Brooklyn, N.Y. – March 27, 2023 - URBAN-X, the platform by MINI for climate and urban technology startups, has announced its 12^th cohort in partnership with leading venture capital firm JVP. The ten high-impact startups in this cohort will help drive greener manufacturing and real estate planning, expand EV charging access, improve the surveying and monitoring of buildings, and more.

Over the past year, both public and private sectors have committed significant capital to accelerate our country’s climate goals. The Inflation Reduction Act, for instance, allocated $369 billion for clean technology development, and despite a decline in overall market transactions by 24 percent, climate-related investments increased by 6.6 percent. Arming climate tech startups with the resources to scale is crucial to continuing to tackle the climate crisis head on, and URBAN-X is working to fuel this next generation of innovators.

Through the cohort’s four-month program, startups will receive tailored trainings in ESG, go-to-market, storytelling, and more, as well as seminars, and guidance from URBAN-X. They will also have the opportunity to work with top-tier design, engineering, and brand experts to help them refine and scale their solutions for the commercial market. Additionally, startups will gain access to JVP’s expansive global network, which includes investors, industrial leaders, and other entrepreneurs.

“We’re thrilled to be launching the newest cohort of climate tech startups as part of our URBAN-X program.” said Mike Peyton, President of MINI Business Innovations LLC, and Vice President of MINI of the Americas. “MINI was founded on innovating sustainable mobility for city dwellers and today, we’re committed to driving positive change in urban environments. Supporting the next generation of climate tech founders and startups is essential in achieving this mission and helping our country reach its climate goals”

“Cohort 12 includes some of the most inventive and devoted technologists we have seen throughout the years,” said Johan Schwind, Managing Director of URBAN-X. “As calls for climate action grow louder across the globe, we are excited to work alongside these changemakers and support them in bringing their visions to life across our cities.”

Since 2016, URBAN-X has supported more than 80 startups spanning 14 countries to address complex challenges facing cities. To date, URBAN-X has helped to enable startups to collectively raise over $440M, from seed to Series B, alongside four company exits.

The complete list of URBAN-X Cohort 12 companies include:

• Carbon Blue: Developing marine calcium looping technology that removes CO2 from our oceans and returns calcium to maintain the ocean’s natural chemical composition. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
• ClimateView: Software development company for cities working on monitoring and visualization tools for greenhouse gas emissions. (Stockholm, Sweden)
• Dryad: Provides ultra-early forest fire detection as well as health and growth monitoring solutions for public and private forests. (Berlin, Germany)
• factoRee: Focused on helping tens of thousands of factories better manage their emission-reduction processes by guiding COOs and site managers toward greener production processes and products, including using materials more efficiently, minimizing energy and waste, and replacing raw materials and energy sources. (Tel Aviv, Israel)
• FunForm: Making building envelope retrofits simple and scalable. (New York)
• Gentian: Leverages remote sensing data and proprietary machine learning models to accelerate the speed of ecological surveying while drastically reducing cost. This allows for precise biodiversity assessments and monitoring in the development of the lifecycle buildings–an increasingly important aspect of real estate management. (London)
• itselectric: Scalable curbside EV charging purpose-built to accelerate the transition to electrified urban transportation. (New York City)
• Novele: Designs, manufactures, and sells energy storage solutions for dense urban environments. The first product, Energy Board, is an ultra-thin space saving energy storage solution designed for scaled applications in buildings of all types. (New York City)
• Seam Social Labs: Enterprise AI solution to transform community feedback to insights for urban planning and design teams. (New York City)
• Urban Dashboard: Replaces outdated practices and revolutionizes the way real estate professionals plan their next projects with its data-driven SaaS platform for early-stage planning optimization. (Tel Aviv, Israel)

About URBAN-X

URBAN-X is the platform for founders reimagining city life. Built by MINI in 2016, URBAN-X partners with startups to build bold technology solutions for a sustainable planet. Breaking from traditional startup program molds, URBAN-X provides Pre-Seed and Seed-Stage entrepreneurs with individualized and tailored support that accelerates growth and builds successful businesses for the next generation of climate- and city-focused innovators. Core to its platform, URBAN-X offers world-class engineering and design resources, industry-leading investment capital from our venture partner JVP, a global network of investors, policymakers, corporate strategies and end-customers, and premier educational content for a global network of founders. Find URBAN-X on Twitter & Instagram at @urbanxtech and on Facebook at facebook.com/urbanxtech.

About MINI in the US

MINI is an independent brand of the BMW Group. In the United States, MINI USA operates as a business unit of BMW of North America, LLC, located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey and includes the marketing and sales organizations for the MINI brand. The authorized MINI USA dealer organization is represented by a network of 104 MINI full passenger car sales and service dealers located throughout the US.  MINI USA began selling vehicles in the U.S. in 2002 with the introduction of the MINI Cooper and MINI Cooper S Hardtops. Since then, the MINI brand in the U.S. has grown to encompass a model range of five unique vehicles.

Journalist notes: Media information about MINI and its products is available to journalists on-line at www.miniusanews.com.

About JVP

JVP, is an internationally renowned venture capital fund based in Israel. Established in 1993 by Dr. Erel Margalit, JVP has raised to date $1.6 billion across 10 funds, and has been listed numerous times by Preqin, and other rankings, as one of the top-ten consistently performing VC firms worldwide. JVP has built over 160 companies, leveraging a broad network of partners and market expertise to help companies become global market leaders. Among the pioneering firms of the Israeli venture capital industry, JVP has been instrumental in building some of the largest companies out of Israel, facilitating 12 Initial Public Offerings on NASDAQ including CyberArk Software (NASDAQ: CYBR, $3.6 billion mkt. cap.), QLIK Technologies (NASDAQ: QLIK, then $2.5 billion mkt. cap.) and Cogent Communications (NASDAQ: CCOI, $2.3 billion mkt. cap.). https://www.jvpvc.com/

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