ORNL, Chattanooga startup accelerator partner to expand technology commercialization

On Wednesday, July 8, the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) signed a memorandum of understanding with The Company Lab (Co.Lab) designed to facilitate the deployment of ORNL technology and strengthen the region's growing deep-tech ecosystem.

The partnership builds on ORNL's longstanding commitment to helping promising technologies reach the marketplace through licensing and industry partnerships. ORNL works with more startups than any other lab in the DOE complex, whether by licensing technologies or through the Innovation Crossroads program.

Innovation Crossroads is a Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program node overseen by the DOE's Office of Technology Commercialization, in which hard-tech entrepreneurs are embedded at ORNL and paired with ORNL researchers for a two-year fellowship. This agreement with Co.Lab will further expand the resources available to Innovation Crossroads fellows upon graduation and help bolster the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in East Tennessee.

Over the past decade, Innovation Crossroads has supported 58 startups, with more than half choosing to remain in the region.

"Innovation Crossroads demonstrates how a strong regional startup pipeline can create companies, attract investment and strengthen East Tennessee's innovation economy," said Shaun Gleason, director of Partnerships. Innovation Crossroads companies have created nearly 350 jobs and generated more than $1 billion in sales revenue.

Growing companies - and the region - from breakthrough science

"The communities that lead are rarely those that just invent the technologies or invent the next breakthrough," said Gleason. "They're the ones that create an environment where innovators can access talent, infrastructure, capital, and those partnerships turn into thriving businesses together."

The signing brought together federal, state and local leaders, including U.S. Representative Chuck Fleischmann, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly and Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp.

"By joining ORNL's world-class research with The Company Lab's leadership in entrepreneurship and innovation, we're creating a pipeline from cutting-edge discoveries to real-world solutions," Fleischmann. "These are the kinds of collaborations that grow our economy, support good-paying Tennessee jobs and make sure our state continues to lead the way in American innovation."

Positioning Tennessee for quantum leadership

ORNL's quantum research is helping industry solve complex problems while improving existing technologies, with applications ranging from advanced manufacturing and energy systems to national security, logistics and telecommunications.

These focus areas build on ORNL's historical research strengths, while complimenting Co.Lab's established infrastructure supporting entrepreneurs, whether through the Quantum Tech Accelerator or Chattanooga's recently announced Institute for Quantum Innovation, a partnership between Vanderbilt University and EPB.

Under the agreement, ORNL and Co.Lab will collaborate to accelerate the commercialization of ORNL technologies in the quantum, energy and transportation sectors while expanding resources available to entrepreneurs building companies in those sectors. Founded in 2008, Co.Lab has built a strong track record of supporting technology entrepreneurs, helping launch and scale dozens of companies.

The agreement also complements Tennessee's broader investment in quantum technologies, including support for National Science Foundation X-Labs quantum teams and the Tennessee Quantum Initiative, efforts that recognize ORNL as a cornerstone of the state's growing quantum innovation strategy.

UT-Battelle manages ORNL for the DOE's Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. The Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit energy.gov/science.