Smart power grids, safe roads, and hospital bots: Meet the start-ups in Chattanooga’s Sustainable Mobility Accelerator
The CO.LAB Sustainable Mobility Accelerator is for early stage, venture backable tech companies using emerging tech to change how the world moves.
The Company Lab (CO.LAB) welcomed five start-ups to Chattanooga on Tuesday for the launch of the Sustainable Mobility Accelerator.
The Accelerator is part of Chattanooga’s broader mission to establish the area as a hub for sustainable mobility innovation. By connecting start-ups with regional assets—including EPB’s smart grid, the Smart Corridor, and partnerships with industry leaders such as TVA, Volkswagen, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC).
For the first time, the program will run for six weeks as opposed to the traditional 12.
Bryan Barringer, the new Program Manager for the Sustainable Mobility Accelerator, said the focus of this cohort is really on scaling. Toshia
Noticeably, the fall 2025 cohort features more established companies in areas of artificial intelligence, robotics, distributed energy, quantum-informed grid optimization, and supply chain.
The five participants were selected from a competitive pool of 101 applicants from 17+ countries.
Teknovation met four out of the five at the cohort kickoff on Tuesday, excluding just one company, Atlas, and its founder, Nick Borrego, who was unable to attend.
Atlas, however, is a very impressive company that has been operating for a little more than one year. In its first 12 months, Borrego said in a LinkedIn post that Atlas raised $1.2 million in funding, built a global team of 14 people, and formed some key strategic relationships.
It is an AI-powered Mission Control software platform that turns traffic cameras into transportation intelligence. It can detect more than 87 real-time events like crashes, congestion, and infrastructure failures to help score intersections on safety, efficiency, and environmental impact.
A glimpse into the fall 2025 cohort
Derapi
Thomas Lee joined the Accelerator all the way from San Francisco, California, though his company, Derapi, is completely remote. He serves as its Founder and President.
It is a universal, cloud-based API for the Distributed Energy Resource (DER) Sector. Lee said Derapi is a standardized interface to connect solar inverters, batteries, EV chargers, and other devices across manufacturers.
“The DOE estimates that we will need about 200 gigawatts of new peak capacity by the end of the decade, so we’ve got a big challenge ahead,” Lee said. “Thankfully, there are enough resources for that sort of energy stored within people’s homes, vehicles, and devices actually to meet that load.”
Derapi is a software that integrates with existing hardware, speaks their respective languages, and helps coordinate power onboarding and offboarding with the grid.
During his pitch, Lee stated that the Derapi system now covers approximately 90 percent of the residential solar industry, and they are actively seeking to expand into other markets.
Qubit Engineering
Marouane Salhi joined the Accelerator from his home base of Knoxville. Teknovation readers will probably be familiar with Salhi’s company, Qubit Engineering, which was a fellow in the Innovation Crossroads Program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL).
During his time as a computational engineer at ORNL, Salhi developed a quantum-inspired method for optimizing grid intelligence. He founded Qubit Engineering to develop a scalable software that can help utilities manage renewable integration, aging infrastructure, and grid complexity in real time.
“There are $150 billion in annual losses due to outages in the United States each year, and the utility companies are drowning in these complexities,” Salhi said. “Qubit Engineering turns this data into actionable insights to make grids more reliable by leaning on quantum principles.”
ShipItPro
Wes Montague is the founder of ShipItPro, which is a dock-to-dock cargo verification system that uses QR scanning, smartphone checklists, and Load Execution Reports to reduce damage and drive accountability in freight handling.
“11 percent of all shipments arrive with damage, costing companies more than 300 billion dollars per year,” he said. “Our smart system uses AI and data to guide the safest way to pack and secure freight, track what happens in transit, and prove it was done right.”
Montague hopes it can become the industry standard for shipping – like a “seatbelt for freight.”
Zeus Robotics
The co-founder of Zeus Robotics, Vivek Thankachan, started his pitch by explaining the hustle and bustle of hospitals. Right now, nurses and technicians are responsible for bringing supplies, blood samples, and safety equipment from one location to the next. But what if highly advanced robots could take it there instead?
That’s the idea behind Zeus Robotics. They are developing autonomous delivery robots for hospitals and clinics to streamline the transport of medications, lab samples, equipment, and laundry while reducing staff workload.
He is joined by two other co-founders, Amal Ashok, who is the Chief Product Officer, and Anandhu Sunos, who is the Chief Technology Officer.
For the next six weeks, these founders will focus on scaling their companies, identifying customers, and meeting Chattanooga’s ecosystem partners.
“Our cohort companies are tackling some of the toughest challenges in energy, transportation, and data infrastructure,” said Tasia Malakasis, Chief Executive Officer of CO.LAB. “By bringing these entrepreneurs to Chattanooga, we’re not just advancing their ventures—we’re reinforcing this city’s role as a national leader in sustainable mobility and innovation.”
The program has 100 percent placement for participating companies with 15+ major industry partners. And, more than 20 of the former participants still have an active pilot with their industry partner.
Read more about the Sustainable Mobility Accelerator.
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