Uprise Energy Wins First Place at MIT FutureMakers Climate & Energy Semi-Final

We're heading to New York City.

Last week, Uprise Energy took first place in the Climate & Energy vertical at the MIT FutureMakers semi-finals, earning our spot among the eight companies advancing to the Finals on October 22. More than 550 startups competed across eight global semi-finals, and the field was anything but easy—these were serious companies with real technology solving real problems.

FutureMakers is the official launch event for TwentySix Ventures, MIT's first-ever student-run venture capital fund, and they've assembled serious institutional backing and heavyweight VCs to identify companies they believe are building the future across eight industry verticals. When you place first in a field evaluated by people like that, it's more than a trophy—it's validation from institutions that know what they're looking at.

How We Got Here

Our partnership with Amazon opened this door. As both a sponsor and member of the judging committee, Amazon has worked closely with us over the years and saw an opportunity that aligned with where we are as a company. They invited us to compete, though the timeline didn't leave much room for preparation. We had just days between the invitation and the semi-final presentation, so we built an entirely new pitch from the ground up and delivered it via Zoom to a panel evaluating climate and energy innovations.

We placed first.

The technology did the talking. Our portable wind turbine system addresses critical gaps in off-grid power, defense applications, and disaster response—markets where diesel generators have dominated for decades despite their cost and environmental impact. Each unit we deploy replaces those generators while cutting annual operating costs by $40,000 and offsetting 100,000 pounds of CO₂. It's taken years of R&D, prototypes, and field demonstrations to reach this point, but we're now at a stage where serious institutions recognize not just what we've built, but what it means for the future of renewable energy deployment.

Katy Nelson of Andreesen Horowitz captured it well when she said we have "the right product at the right time." We had the foresight to begin development when others weren't yet focused on portable, scalable wind solutions, and that timing is proving critical as the market catches up to what we've been building.

The Company We're In

The Finals won't be a showcase of early-stage ideas or untested concepts. The companies advancing to New York have already demonstrated real traction—partnerships with major institutions, revenue, patents, and customers who rely on their technology. We'll be pitching alongside AI-driven security platforms working with BMW and NVIDIA, autonomous drone networks with $2M in secured purchase orders, sleep tech companies partnered with Harvard Medical School, and biomaterial innovators redefining tissue regeneration.

We’re honored to be included in this accomplished cohort of companies and know this recognition from MIT and their talented judges will open many doors for Uprise.

What This Really Means

The Finals are designed to do more than crown a winner. The event brings together marquee venture capital firms, academics, and industry heavyweights—exactly the audience we need to reach as we scale. What would typically take months or even years of individual outreach, we'll accomplish in a single day, with the added credibility of having been vetted by MIT. It's an efficient use of time and resources, much like the technology we've developed.

Our CEO, Jonathan Knight, will pitch live on stage on October 22, but the real work happens in the conversations that follow—meetings with investors, introductions to strategic partners, and discussions that could fundamentally accelerate our path forward. Those connections are why we're making the trip, regardless of where we place in the final rankings.

Why This Matters

Not every company gets years of development work recognized by institutions like MIT. When it happens, it's worth acknowledging—not as an endpoint, but further validation that the work is resonating with people who understand the space.

Winning the Climate & Energy vertical means that when MIT evaluated hundreds of startups, they placed us among the eight companies they believe should represent the future of their respective industries. This confirms what we've known for some time: Uprise Energy has built something that the world needs and deserves to be part of the conversation about the future of clean energy.

We'll share updates from New York as the event unfolds. This is our moment to show what we've built to the people who can help us bring it to scale.