Looking to start or scale a climate company in San Diego?
From Southern California Energy Innovation Network, EvoNexus, and CONNECT, here is the accelerator and incubator ecosystem that can back your startup with capital, space, and hands-on support.
Southern California Energy Innovation Network
SCEIN is a free, equity-free clean-energy incubator managed by Cleantech San Diego and funded by the state, serving startups in San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, and Imperial counties developing technologies for California's clean-energy goals. It provides customized business services through a regional partner consortium, industry and investor connections, pilot-demonstration matchmaking, and access to regional facilities on a rolling basis, across transportation electrification, grid and building decarbonization, efficiency, storage, and resilience. Suits clean-energy hardware and software founders in the four-county region wanting free commercialization support and pilot access.
EvoNexus
EvoNexus is San Diego's leading nonprofit technology-startup incubator, historically pro bono with free workspace and now a nominal common-equity grant on admission for a long-duration residency of up to about two years. It provides private office and coworking space, milestone-based one-to-one mentoring, strategic corporate connections, and an expansive investor network, and is sector-broad rather than climate-specific though it has hosted energy startups. Suits high-growth tech founders, including climate software and hardware, wanting long-duration incubation, cheap space, and deep corporate and investor access.
CONNECT
CONNECT's Springboard is a free, no-equity mentoring and acceleration program pairing early-stage tech and life-science founders with seasoned executive mentors to sharpen their business model, commercialization strategy, and investor pitch over several months, as part of the regional SBDC network. It is explicitly not a funding program and does not itself introduce founders to investors, which run through separate CONNECT programs. Suits prototype or MVP-stage founders, tech or life science including climate, who need investor-readiness mentoring rather than capital.