SFU alumni Moment Energy wins $100K to power the future with EV batteries

By Vivien Lee

Four SFU mechatronics alumni from the Charles Chang Institute of Entrepreneurship have won the 2021 National Impact Investor Challenge with their cleantech startup, Moment Energy. The $100,000 investment prize was awarded on June 17, 2021 at the virtual finale.

The challenge, hosted by Spring Activator, is a 10-week program that brings together investors looking for purpose-driven entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs deliver a series of pitches and the investors collectively award $100,000 in investments to their chosen company at the finale. Moment Energy was announced as the top team out of 150 applicants across Canada and also took home the People’s Choice Award through public vote.

Moment Energy, founded by Sumreen Rattan, Gurmesh Sidhu, Gabriel Soares, and Edward Chiang, receives entrepreneurship support from Coast Capital Savings Venture Connection, SFU’s early-stage startup incubator.  The company gained attention for repurposing used electric vehicle (EV) batteries to provide access to clean and reliable electricity. Since launching in 2019, Moment continues to improve access to high-quality lithium batteries for off-grid communities and on-grid commercial industries. On the evening of the finale, the team was in Alberta deploying 20kWh of energy storage for an off-grid residential project.

“We’re honoured to be recognized as the top team by the investors in the grand prize and the audience in the People’s Choice Award,” says company co-founder Sumreen Rattan. “The $100,000 investment will go towards improving our product and growing our team.”

Beginning as a team of four in 2019, the company is now 14 people strong including three SFU co-op students.

The four co-founders began their entrepreneurial journey as undergraduates in the Technology Entrepreneurship@SFU program where mechatronics, business and interdisciplinary entrepreneurship students are brought together to develop a market-inspired and solution-driven technological product. They also participated in entrepreneurship co-op (eCoop) at SFU, which awards students $10,000 each from the Charles Chang Institute for Entrepreneurship to work on their startups full-time while receiving co-op credit.