New business incubator launches in Half Moon Bay

“Our vision is very, very clear: contribute to a resilient coastside economy, by recruiting startups that align with the existing coastside economy,” said Eric Vettel, American Energy Society president and a Half Moon Bay resident. 

American Energy Society is focusing on three major pillars of interest for potential startups, agriculture, water and built environment like roads and infrastructure, to develop economy and jobs around the region’s natural assets and climate resilience. The organization’s experience with energy technology and research will help them provide mentorship to burgeoning coastside businesses within these designated sectors, Vettel said.  

“We, as society, have a voracious appetite for more and more energy. As we know, this voracious appetite creates stresses on many resources, including the climate and the environment,” he said. “From a practical standpoint, food is in a sense energy, that’s its purpose. You can’t have clean water without energy. The built environment requires so much energy.” 

The Coastside Venture Studio is receiving $200,000 in startup money from the grant, Erica Wood, who led Half Moon Bay’s Coastside Recovery Initiative in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, said. Wood, alongside the city, selected the American Energy Society — which was officially approved at the March 5 City Council meeting — to lead the upcoming business incubator based on their capacity to facilitate profitable and unique startups within existing coastside economy niches. 

“The coastside economy has been traditionally defined by a couple of leading industries, agriculture and hospitality,” Wood said. “It’s really important to think about ‘how do we diversify,’ so that we are not so heavily dependent on legacy industries that may be struggling.” 

The goal is to have an inaugural cohort of six startups with the potential to create economic and job growth on the coastside, she said. 

“We want high-meaning, high-wage, high-demand jobs, attractive to the current workforce and particularly the future workforce,” Wood said. “What happens when our students graduate high school? They’re not thinking about staying. We’ve got to think about the workforce we have here, and how we create a sense of hope and opportunity for the future.” 

Vettel said the Coastside Venture Studio will work to create opportunity for underprivileged communities by teaching startups that traditional methods of emphasizing “the same degrees from the same schools” isn’t always the best way to find talent. 

“Coaching and teaching and showing through example what they actually are valuing are skills, and emphasizing the skill side of an applicant,” he said. “If we’re serious about energy, sustainability and resilience, we’ve got to open this up.” 

The business incubator is just one aspect of the Coastside Recovery Initiative’s larger plan to address the area’s lack of economic diversity. Many individuals with high-paying jobs commute over the hill, Wood said, and the local economy is experiencing a sense of systemic stagnation beyond the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The county grant for the Opportunity Center will place two other nonprofit organizations in the space — Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center, helping small businesses survive and thrive, and JobTrain, helping individuals develop new skills, career training and assisting with job placement opportunities. The Half Moon Bay Coastside Chamber of Commerce will also operate out of the new center, which has a ribbon cutting planned for March. 

The American Energy Society’s priorities and access to a wide variety of experts makes them uniquely positioned to assist coastside businesses interested in redefining and creating growth within natural sectors, both Wood and Vettel said. 

“They have been working within the startup ecosystem for a long time, [and] they just had a really interesting mix of capability and that north star around resiliency that aligned really well with what we were trying to do,” Wood said.