Forestry Accelerator

The 2024 Forestry Accelerator is temporarily on hold while we undergo an environmental review related to our federal funding. We will provide an update soon. Please reach out to jared.reynolds@vermontstate.edu if you have any questions.

The Forestry Accelerator is a four month program open to North American startup and pre-seed stage companies that are commercializing new and improved products, services, and technology in the forest industry. In 2022, the Accelerator had 7 companies participate from software, biochar, pellets, wood energy, packaging, and consumer products.

The program provides forestry startups with connections to industry experts, customers, suppliers, partners, pilots, investors, and industry leaders and a comprehensive commercialization curriculum, in partnership with ecosVC, to develop your business case, business model, and go-to-market plan. In its first year, the program connected participating companies to millions of dollars in initial customers to continue to grow.

The program includes both virtual and in-person components and companies receive financial support for two trips to Vermont's Northeast Kingdom to connect with other cohort members and industry leaders. The following is the program schedule:

-July 24th and 25th, Kickoff (virtual)
-August 21-25, Sprint 1 (Vermont)
-October 3rd-5th, Sprint 2 (virtual)
-October 30th- November 1st, Sprint 3 (Vermont)

There are additional webinars, panels, and 1:1 coaching throughout the program.

The Forestry Accelerator focuses on supporting companies in the following three areas:

*Products that use chips, dust, resins, shavings, byproducts, and other low grade wood.

*Technology that improves forest industry operations, production, automation, sales throughout the supply chain, or forest management.

*Products or services that increases the use of wood heat or energy or improve its efficiency, either through new or improved fuels or heat or energy systems.