Looking to start or scale a climate company in San Francisco?
From SOSV, Activate, and Cleantech Open West, here is the accelerator and incubator ecosystem that can back your startup with capital, space, and hands-on support.
SOSV
SOSV is a leading pre-seed biotech and deep-tech accelerator and the Bay Area node of a global venture firm, focused on bio-based solutions for human and planetary health, from climate materials and carbon removal to alternative foods and biomanufacturing. It runs a roughly four-month cohort twice a year in San Francisco, providing a first check for equity plus wet-lab and coworking space, in-house PhD scientists and engineers, and a large mentor network, then follows on into alumni.
Activate
Activate runs the two-year, non-dilutive fellowship that scaled the lab-embedded model nationally, and its Berkeley community shares a single application with Cyclotron Road at Berkeley Lab. Fellows across many hard-science verticals receive a living stipend, R&D support, curriculum, mentorship, and lab and community access, with no equity and no fees, and Bay Area relocation and in-person participation are required.
Cleantech Open West
Cleantech Open West is the Western US region of the world's largest and longest-running cleantech accelerator, now run as a program of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator, offering a roughly twelve-week program for early-stage founders. It provides intensive workshops, one-to-one mentoring from a large pro bono network, customer discovery, investor meetings, and showcases, funded by fees and sponsors with cash and in-kind prizes rather than a guaranteed investment, and coordinated with CalSEED.
Third Derivative
Third Derivative is a global climate-tech accelerator founded by RMI and New Energy Nexus, structured as an integrated engine of accelerator, venture funding, and corporate and investor ecosystem. Its flexible, roughly eighteen-month virtual program gives each startup a dedicated account manager, an optional early investment, first access to a large follow-on investor network, corporate deal facilitation, and RMI's deep energy-expert bench, targeting prototype-stage companies across hard-to-abate sectors.
New Energy Nexus
New Energy Nexus is the world's leading clean-energy entrepreneur network, providing funds, accelerators, and networks to diverse clean-energy founders, and in California it administers the state's flagship non-dilutive CalSEED grants and CalTestBed vouchers and co-founded Third Derivative. It offers grant capital, accelerator and mentorship services, testing access, and a large entrepreneur community, with an explicit access-and-inclusion focus.
Prospect Silicon Valley
Prospect Silicon Valley is a San Jose nonprofit urbantech innovation hub for mobility, energy, and the built environment, whose distinctive offering is a technology demonstration center with workspace, lab and prototyping space, and a connected-vehicle testbed. It adds commercialization support and connections to corporate and government partners and investors, with recent work in building decarbonization and equitable clean mobility.