Entrepreneurship program at Argonne announces newest cohort of embedded startup founders

Cutting-edge startups embed at Argonne to develop innovative technologies that can solve critical scientific challenges.

Five new innovators will join Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI), the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program (LEEP) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, as part of the award-winning program’s eighth cohort.

The five will join the two-year program starting this July. Each innovator will collaborate with a host scientist at Argonne while embedded full-time. Innovators plan to launch startups that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase U.S. competitiveness in emerging technologies. These resulting technologies support the country’s equitable clean energy economy and may help the U.S. reach its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

CRI’s impact is far-reaching as it celebrates its eighth year of embedding entrepreneurs at Argonne. The combined total raised by CRI startups through May 2024 is over $643 million, and the program has helped create 679 jobs to date.

“Collaborations like those between early-stage startups and CRI help unlock the immense potential of our laboratory’s scientific expertise,” noted Argonne Director Paul Kearns. ​“Through teamwork, we’ll be able to leverage our collective knowledge and capabilities to move science innovations to the marketplace and create economic prosperity”

The five new innovators in CRI’s Cohort 8 are:

• Angela Feldhaus, self-levitating, near-space platforms for atmospheric sensing and telecommunications
• Haining Gao, hybrid solid-liquid cathode to boost lithium primary battery energy
• Berk Kovos, SynthBits: Illuminating designer qubits for all
• Jhana Porter, conversion of biobased overage streams into high-value polymer bioproducts
• Scott Svadlenak, validation of economic viability of a novel process to upcycle PVC

“We believe science is the bedrock on which innovations will deliver a sustainable, prosperous and equitable world,” CRI Director Dick Co said. ​“And what better way to realize that promise than by embedding innovators at Argonne, the nation’s first national lab.”

Innovators were selected following a national solicitation process and two-part pitch competition, with reviews from industry experts, investors, scientists and engineers.

CRI is supported by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office, Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office, Building Technologies Office; DOE’s Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research, Basic Energy Sciences; DOE’s Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management; and by Argonne.

Applications for CRI’s ninth cohort will open on September 4.

About Chain Reaction Innovations
Chain Reaction Innovations provides a two-year fellowship for entrepreneurs focusing on clean energy and science technologies. Selected annually through an application call, the program enables innovators to work on their technology full-time, de-risking their startups with the help of leading experts and equipment from Argonne National Laboratory. Each cohort works to build their startups into market-ready businesses. CRI is located at Argonne and supported by area mentors from the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago.

Chain Reaction Innovations is part of the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Programs within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). EERE created the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Programs to provide an institutional home for innovative postdoctoral researchers to build their research into products and train to be entrepreneurs.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy’s (EERE) mission is to accelerate the research, development, demonstration, and deployment of technologies and solutions to equitably transition America to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide by no later than 2050, and ensure the clean energy economy benefits all Americans, creating good paying jobs for the American people — especially workers and communities impacted by the energy transition and those historically underserved by the energy system and overburdened by pollution.

EERE’s Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Programs (LEEP) are sponsored by EERE’s Advanced Manufacturing Office (AMO) and managed in collaboration between AMO and EERE’s Technology-to-Market office.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.