Corporate & Strategic Partnerships in Cleantech
Why Join?
Learn how the right partnerships can help your startup grow faster.
Understand what corporate partners are looking for.
Improve your value proposition to attract the right opportunities.
Avoid common mistakes when building strategic partnerships.
See how partnerships can support commercialization and fundraising.
Hear real-world advice from founders, investors, and industry experts.
Walk away with practical ideas you can put into action right away.
Building the right strategic partnerships can be a powerful catalyst for growth. Join Launch NY's Emerging Cleantech Opportunity (ECO) Incubator for a practical session designed to help cleantech founders understand how to identify, engage, and secure partnerships that support commercialization and scale.
During this workshop, we'll explore what corporate and strategic partners look for in emerging companies, how to refine your value proposition to attract the right opportunities, key diligence and risk considerations, and ways to align partnership strategies with long-term business goals.
Featured Speakers:
Jon DeWald, Founder & CEO, HelixIntel
Paul Burgon, Partner, KittyHawk
Mitch Gainer, Director of Investments, NextEra Energy
Brett Chandler, Vice President of Business Development, National Grid Partners
Moderated by Kyle Blumin, Launch NY Entrepreneur-in-Residence
Paul Burgon is a Partner at KittyHawk Frontier, specializing in energy and infrastructure technologies. Paul has led nearly 100 M&A and corporate venture capital investments and exits worth over $3 billion. Paul co-created the Danaher acquisition and corporate venture system, which has been recognized as one of the most successful in the U.S. As a venture capital investor in the energy, infrastructure, critical materials and related industries, Paul focuses on investing in highly disruptive early-stage technologies and startups and creating strategic exits for these investments. Paul works with over 150 global corporate venture capital groups in these industries to reduce investment risk and accelerate the commercial development of his portfolio companies.
Mitch Gainer is the Director of Investments at NextEra Energy, focused on software for energy use cases including Physical AI and robotics, Spatial AI, and agentic automation for energy. Previously, Mitch was Partner & Head of Diligence at Yield Capital Partners (YCP), leading venture, growth equity, and infrastructure investments in digital infrastructure and energy tech. Mitch began his career at BCG, focusing on energy and industrials, before serving in the Obama White House (USTR). He holds an MBA from Wharton, an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, and a BA in Economics from Notre Dame.
Brett is Vice President of Business Development at National Grid Partners, where he leads the team that partners with National Grid business units to identify challenges across the organization and apply emerging technologies to address them. With deep experience in field execution and operational management, Brett helps bridge venture and utility cultures and plays a key role in testing and deploying operational technologies. Before joining National Grid Partners, he spent more than a decade at National Grid in roles across the Office of the COO for U.S. electric and gas operations; Safety, Health & Environment; and U.S. Capital Delivery.
Kyle Blumin is a successful entrepreneur with an established record of success. Three exits to both private equity and Fortune 50, experiences in turnarounds, early-stage start-ups and M&A have provided Kyle a unique skill set for working with early-stage founders. Since his last exit, Kyle has been working with founders to scale their businesses and realize their own success and dreams.
Whether you're preparing for your first strategic partnership or looking to strengthen existing relationships, this session will provide actionable insights to help accelerate your company's growth.
This program is supported by NYSERDA.