Since Georgia-Pacific’s 1915 Studios launch in collaboration with startup accelerator gener8tor in 2021, three cohorts of early-stage startups have capitalized on the resources available through the free, 12-week accelerator program housed within G-P’s Neenah Technical Center. And the fourth is currently underway at 1915 Marathon Avenue. There, early-stage startups have access to a hub of idea-generation, product development, technology and creative resources.

As of early 2023, a total of 13 startup companies have graduated from the program. The common denominator among the startups: a focus on innovative sustainability solutions.

Take Celcy, for example, whose CEO and co-founder Max Wieder heard about the opportunity to participate in a 1915 Studios cohort after reaching out to gener8tor. Although he had tapped into other accelerators, 1915 Studios stood apart in terms of resources and opportunities for tangible outcomes.

“It was definitely worth it,” Wieder says of the experience. “You [gain] access to a lot of resources, including access to a full engineering team. They knew how to do production and helped me expedite the creation of the [Celcy] food tray.”

Celcy is centered around a patented IoT, autonomous, countertop robot that combines a freezer and an oven to offer on-demand, quality food. The freezer stores five pre-made meals and allows the user to select, and then have Celcy prepare, a meal from a connected device such as a smartphone. The company was in its research and development phase and on the road to having a design for manufacturing (DFM) when Wieder arrived at 1915 Studios.

“The greatest thing Georgia-Pacific was able to do was help [figure out] a way to make Celcy mass producible,” Wieder says. “We had a lot of interaction with their 3D printing people, production people, others who have insights into plastics. At the end, they were able to prototype a few examples and produce all the plastic parts for our beta unit.”

Georgia-Pacific’s commitment to each startup participant is multifaceted. 1915 Studios’ 12-week program is designed to help startups prototype and build their products, gain early customer traction on their products or ideas, and establish metrics that make them competitive applicants for full-time accelerators or seed investment. Georgia-Pacific officials say they recognized the innovation occurring outside company walls and sought the opportunity to tune into that in a structured way.

“And of course, the hope is to form mutually beneficial relationships with some of the companies who go through the cohorts as we boost the startup community, ideally in Northeast Wisconsin,” says Dave Hahn, vice president Dixie R&D, Georgia-Pacific.

Since the studio’s inception, Georgia-Pacific has uncovered three mutually beneficial relationships with startups. Luys Systems is a California startup focused on bathroom stall occupancy sensors and indicators that are IoT-based. Farm to Flame Energy is a Pennsylvania-based startup that provides smokeless, odorless energy by diverting crop waste streams from becoming greenhouse gases. The third is a Northeast Wisconsin-based company, Roving Blue, which produces an ozone generation system for purifying water used for drinking, washing vegetables, and a variety of sanitizing needs. Roving Blue was featured on the February cover of Insight on Business.

Georgia-Pacific’s relationship with each of those three companies varies from an R&D agreement to a services agreement, to ongoing exploration.

“Yana [DeMyer, CEO of Roving Blue] was in our first cohort and needed help with the engineering of the lid of the water bottle that purifies the water,” Hahn says. “We have an agreement in place to provide engineering services with an opportunity for royalties. This is a good success story because it’s an area where G-P doesn’t really play, and we liked Yana’s spirit in pushing things forward.”

At the heart of 1915 Studios is helping to build upon entrepreneurs’ spirit, passion and innovation; creating tangible outcomes; and providing a framework for next steps and future success, says Brian Davis, program manager for 1915 Studios and gener8tor.

“We really deliver on what we say we’re going to do,” Davis says. “If we say [entrepreneurs] are going to receive free engineering and R&D support, they will get that. There are tons of accelerators out there, but the hands-on component at 1915 Studios is extremely rare.”