AmplifyMass

The Challenge: Leveraging Federal Support for Innovation

Several federal agencies support clean energy innovation, but their awardees must often supply a significant share of total project costs. This can be an obstacle for both academic researchers and innovative small businesses pursuing federal awards. 

About AmplifyMass

AmplifyMass supports academic researchers and companies who need cost-share or adders for federal/non federal prime awards. AmplifyMass provides up to $300,000 for academic or company projects pursuing cost-share or adders for federal or non-federal prime awards (such as awards from ARPA-E, NSF, DOE, and USABC), or up to $100,000 for academic projects that are not tied directly to a prime grant. The program supports projects that aim to commercialize or substantially de-risk an innovation that falls within MassCEC’s mission.

Status
Open
Award Potential

$300,000

Application Deadline

Rolling

Questions? Contact

Funding Schedule

AmplifyMass operates on a rolling basis. Awards are subject to availability.

Process Step Timing
Submit application Rolling
Notification of award 3 to 6 months from submission
Contracting concludes About 1 month from award notification

Who's Eligible

Eligible applicants include Massachusetts-based cleantech small businesses and academic institutions/universities. 

  • Proposals must satisfy the definition of “clean energy” as explained in the AmplifyMass Application Process and Eligibility document.  

  • Companies

    • Must be a small business as outlined by the United States Small Business Administration’s “Table of Small Business Size Standards” and must have a significant Massachusetts presence 

    • May apply for projects pursuing cost share or adders for a federal/non-federal prime award (such as awards from ARPA-E, NSF, DOE, and USABC) only

    • For cost share support, applications must be submitted before the primary funding is contracted

  • Massachusetts Academic Institutions/Universities

    • May apply for projects pursuing cost share or adders for a federal/non-federal prime award (such as awards from ARPA-E, NSF, DOE, and USABC). Note: Awards are typically a fraction of the required cost share and the total project cost.

    • For cost share support, applications must be submitted before the primary funding is contracted. Certain exceptions may be considered on a case-by-case basis.

    • Academic/university applicants may also submit applications for individual or follow-on projects that are not cost share or simultaneous “adder” scopesSuch applications must aim to commercialize an innovation or substantially de-risk an innovation for commercialization purposes. Applications without a prime grant or which follow a concluded prime grant will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis. These awards are capped at $100,000 apiece.

For full Program details, please refer to the AmplifyMass Application Process and Eligibility document.

Apply

Application Process

The review and selection process entails several steps:

  1. MassCEC ensures that applicants meet the program’s eligibility criteria.
  2. Applications are submitted to subject-matter experts for technical review.
  3. Applications are surveyed by an internal award selection committee to identify the most compelling proposals among the competitive AmplifyMass pool, based on the review criteria.
  4. Upon confirming eligibility and funding availability, MassCEC will issue a firm commitment letter to provide cost share. A funding agreement will be provided for review at this time.
  5. Upon execution of funding agreements with both MassCEC and the corresponding prime award (if applicable), funds will be disbursed to awardees based on mutually agreed-upon milestones and deliverables, as negotiated per the contract.

Please review our sample grant agreements for universities and companies, as applicable. If you have any questions or concerns about these templates, please submit them along with your application.

For full Program details, please refer to the AmplifyMass Application Process and Eligibility document.

Send completed application to: amplifymass@masscec.com

Learn About AmplifyMass

MassCEC hosted a webinar about Catalyst & DICES/Amplify Mass webinar on September 28, 2023. The webinar included a brief overview of MassCEC and MassVentures' technology to market and investments programs, followed by more detail about the Amplify, DICES and Catalyst programs.

Presented by Leslie Nash, Program Director at MassCEC, Maddy Zeliff, Program Coordinator at MassCEC, and Priya Yadav, Vice President of Investment at MassVentures.  

FAQs

What constitutes a cost share funding request and an adder funding request?

“Cost share support” is defined by this program as grant funding that an applicant is seeking from MassCEC that is required by the prime award.  In other words, the prime award is contingent upon the applicant contributing a specified amount of funding, called cost share funding.

“Adder funding” is defined by this program as grant funding that an applicant is seeking from MassCEC that is not required by the prime award, but would be used to expand or enhance the clean energy project scope funded by the prime award. In assessing requests for adder funding, MassCEC places special consideration on what the project will be able to accomplish with the adder funding that it wouldn’t be able to otherwise. Adder funding budget items should clearly and directly expand or enhance additional clean energy project outcomes and be linked to project work (i.e., not used for overhead).  The AmplifyMass application form allows space for adder funding justification.
 

What is the "significant Massachusetts presence" requirement?

If you are an academic institution, you must be a Massachusetts academic institution. If you are a company, you must have a majority of the following located in Massachusetts (i.e., 3 out of 4, or 2 out of 3 if only 3 are applicable):

  • Company headquarters
  • Primary sales & marketing
  • Primary manufacturing operations
  • Primary research & development operations

If you are a Massachusetts-based academic institution or company currently working as a subcontractor under a prime award to a different entity, you are still eligible to apply for AmplifyMass.

How long after submitting my AmplifyMass application should I expect a response from MassCEC?

MassCEC employs a diligent review process of all applications, in the order that they are received. MassCEC will respond shortly after submission to confirm receipt of your application. The review process can take a variable amount of time depending on the subscription to the program (up to six months). MassCEC may contact you sooner if there are questions on your application. Please keep this timeline in mind when applying to AmplifyMass in order to meet your cost share commitments related to your prime award.

At what point in my prime award application process should I apply to AmplifyMass?

The ideal time to apply is concurrently with or soon after you have submitted your prime award application. While we are happy to review draft prime award applications and concept papers, we cannot commit to funding any proposal for which we have not reviewed the full application as submitted to the prime award agency. Applicants are welcome to apply for AmplifyMass at any point in their prime award review process up until the execution of a Cooperative Agreement or similar agreement with the prime award agency. However, applicants are advised to keep in mind that the AmplifyMass review process can take up to six months.

If I received an AmplifyMass award in the past, am I eligible to apply again if I receive another prime award or an increased prime award?

Yes. If you have received a new award for a unique project, you are eligible to apply for AmplifyMass again. Award selection will be subject to satisfactory performance under the previous AmplifyMass award.

If I am applying to the prime awarding agency for plus-up funds to an existing award, am I eligible to apply for AmplifyMass? What if I received an AmplifyMass award for my original project?

You are eligible to apply, provided that you have not yet executed a Cooperative Agreement or similar agreement with the prime awarding agency specifically for the plus-up funds. You should follow the same application process as if you were applying for a new award. You will only be eligible for AmplifyMass funds to support the plus-up project, not the portion of the project for which you already received an award.

If you received an AmplifyMass award for your original project and are now applying for a plus-up project, you may be eligible to apply to AmplifyMass again. However, the sum of your AmplifyMass awards for both the original award and the plus-up award may not exceed the cap of $300,000.
 

I work for a non-profit institution in Massachusetts and am applying for a prime award. Am I eligible for AmplifyMass?

Yes. Non-profit institutions based in Massachusetts can apply to AmplifyMass under the same rules as academic research teams.

What is a “Total Addressable Carbon” analysis?

The TAC is an estimate of the greenhouse gas emissions that can be reduced, avoided, or remediated assuming wide adoption of a technology or practice. The TAC analysis is designed to give both the applicant and MassCEC a strong sense of what sources of greenhouse gas emissions the proposed project would impact, and how large those potential impacts could be.

Applicants are encouraged to use tools such as the CRANE tool, or other credible public data sources such as the United States Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Emissions Inventory (especially for greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide), the EPA's Greenhouse Gases Equivalencies Calculator, and others. Analyses may be based on a state-wide, national, or international framing. Applicants should seek primarily to identify the total carbon emissions currently associated with the sector targeted by their technology or practice (for example, transportation or residential heating). For example, a technology to reduce the cost of solar panels would impact the approximately 1,250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted every year from electricity generation in the United States.

To the greatest extent possible, applicants should also seek to estimate an “optimistically plausible” amount of those emissions that could be reduced, avoided, or remediated given widespread adoption of the proposed solution. Order-of-magnitude estimates are acceptable, as the goal of the analysis is primarily conceptual rather than precise. Applicants are encouraged to consider both direct and indirect effects as appropriate and to explicitly describe assumptions, especially assumptions related to cost reductions or barriers to adoption.

Acceptable alternatives to a TAC analysis include an avoided-energy analysis for energy efficiency technologies and Levelized Cost of Energy reduction analyses for energy generation technologies.

Additional Resources

The Massachusetts Founder Network aims give Massachusetts startup founders equitable access to resources that will help their companies grow.

Learn about Incubators and Accelerators in Massachusetts.

 

Past Awardees

Electrified Thermal Solutions
Joule Hive™ High Temperature Thermal Battery
Awarded $300,000 with prime source funding from DOE-EERE-IEDO.

Electrified Thermal Solutions, Inc. (ETS) is developing the innovative Joule Hive™ Thermal Battery to provide high temperature heat to several hard-to-abate sectors, such as cement and steel industries. 

rStream
Decentralized Waste Sorting
Awarded $125,000 with prime source funding from NSF SBIR Phase I.

rStream is developing hardware and software to automate disposal decisions to supply waste haulers with premium recyclables.

GridEdge
Smart Grid Technology
Awarded $510,000 with prime source funding from NYSERDA.

GridEdge has developed a turnkey system solution named DERCOM that enables distributed energy resources flexible integrations and grid services. 

ADL Ventures, Inc.
Advanced Building Construction Collaborative
Awarded $125,000 with prime source funding from DOE-EERE-BTO.

ADL Ventures, Inc aims to develop a collaborative that accelerates the delivery of deep energy retrofit and new construction technologies to the market.

Fraunhofer USA
Customization of Prefabricated Panel Blocks for Deep Wall Retrofits
Awarded $87,057 with prime source funding from DOE-EERE.

Fraunhofer USA aims to develop a novel, technology-assisted approach to conducting thermal retrofits in buildings. 

Triton Systems, Inc.
Anchoring System for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines
Awarded $200,000 with prime source funding from NOWRDC.

Triton Systems, Inc aims to develop and commercialize an innovative floating offshore wind anchoring system and installation tool.

Additional Funding Opportunities