On August 11, 2021, The New Jersey Commission on Science, Innovation and Technology (CSIT) announced that it has awarded Arbela Labs with a Clean Tech Seed grant to further expand its business and develop technology within New Jersey. Arbela will be using that grant to further advance approach aimed at increasing the scale and radically reducing the costs associated with the industrial biomanufacturing of protein and other fermentation products.
CSIT Executive Director Judith Sheft noted that the Commission received nearly two dozen applications for this inaugural round of funding and expects to launch a second round later this year with funding that has already been approved by the NJBPU.
The Clean Tech Seed Grant Program, which is funded by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (NJBPU), is designed to help accelerate development and innovation of clean technologies by furthering research and development (R&D) within New Jersey’s startup economy. The Clean Tech Seed Grant Program was created in partnership with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA). This program is directed at companies working on projects that involve developing or testing clean technologies intended to recapture or avoid emissions of greenhouse gases and/or criteria pollutants, or to enable such avoidance or recapture. Funding through the program will help the startups continue their work toward the proof of concept and prototyping stages, at which point they can more readily attract outside investors and, in some cases, begin to generate revenue. The funding is being provided through NJBPU’s Clean Energy Program.
“New Jersey’s innovation ecosystem stands at the forefront of the global transformation toward a clean energy future,” said CSIT Executive Director Gunjan Doshi. “Through innovative programs like this one, we are reaffirming and upholding our commitment to ensuring that New Jersey entrepreneurs have every available resource to fuel the growth of their companies,” Senator Singer said. “By connecting startups with access to precious seed capital, we are helping them work toward commercialization and reach a point where they can attract outside investors and begin to compete in the global economy.”
About Arbela Labs
Arbela Labs (www.arbelalabs.com) is a New Jersey-based company focused on increasing the scale and reducing the costs of biomanufacturing using its methanol-fed Pichia platform and end-to-end systems engineering. Our goal is to economically produce proteins and other biomolecules for our customers at unprecedented volume while enabling a revolution in protein production for human and animal nutrition without the environmental downside of current practices.
