Two cohorts, one growing deep-tech pipeline: Innovation Crossroads and Spark welcome new founders
The Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Spark Accelerator at UT Research Park have a close working relationship, dating back to 2021. Both cohorts of hardtech founders will undergo Spark's fall programming.
Last week brought a one-two punch for East Tennessee’s innovation ecosystem. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Innovation Crossroads program at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Spark Innovation Center at the University of Tennessee Research Park at Cherokee Farm both announced their newest cohorts, thirteen founders in total, working on everything from mobile nuclear microreactors to lithium isotope separation to cancer diagnostics.
The two programs are increasingly intertwined. The six founders joining Innovation Crossroads for their two-year ORNL fellowship will also spend time in the Spark Accelerator’s 12 weeks of commercialization programming, giving them a crash course in entrepreneurship alongside their lab work.
Meet the 2026 Innovation Crossroads Cohort
Three of the six founders are already familiar names to Teknovation readers.
NXT MFG’s Eric Heikkenen developed an adaptive process control approach for 3D metal printing that could make industrial-grade additive manufacturing accessible to electric utilities. He came through the Spark program last fall and picked up a $10,000 award from the Tennessee Valley Authority after pitching at the Tennessee Advanced Energy Business Council’s Opportunities in Energy event.
Aquafer Technologies’ Marton Krivan is building a longer-lasting filtration material designed to strip the full spectrum of PFAS, “forever chemicals,” from drinking water, and the Knoxville company is already working out of lab space at the Spark Incubator space at UT Research Park.
Kunin Technologies’ Daniel Rau rounds out the familiar names, with a chemical separation process that pulls overlooked critical minerals like gallium, germanium, and vanadium out of mine waste, aimed at reducing U.S. reliance on foreign sources.
Joining them are three founders new to Teknovation’s audience: Ernesto Borrego of HAND Technologies, working on carbon and ceramic matrix composite manufacturing; Erick Hoegberg of DiNeu Technologies, developing a diamond-based semiconductor detector for alpha spectrometry; and David Preiss of Variable Machines, building programmable tooling.
Borrego, Hoegberg, and Preiss are joining from home-bases of from Mississippi, Tennessee, and Massachusetts, respectively. Look for more on each of them in the weeks ahead.
Spark Innovation Center Director Bill Malkes said this fall’s accelerator is built to look and operate differently, leaning harder into East Tennessee’s particular strengths. Past cohorts have leaned almost entirely toward energy, but this semester marks the first time Spark has brought in companies from another one of the state’s signature industries: healthcare innovation.
Since the program’s inception, Spark has supported more than 50 companies, raised more than $200 million in funding, and created approximately 200 jobs.
The program is also adding new educational materials to help deep-tech founders write competitive federal grant applications.
The seven companies include:
LiCube (Licube, Inc.) — Led by Paul Monroe, LiCube produces ultra-high-purity lithium through a patented LLTO electrodialysis platform and is expanding into separated lithium isotopes, including lithium-6 and lithium-7, feedstock for fusion and advanced nuclear markets. The company is based in Houston, Texas, with operations already underway in the U.S. and Japan.
Canary Instruments — Founded by Walter Xu and Adil Ahmed, Canary Instruments builds continuous, real-time radiation monitoring for nuclear fission and fusion applications, starting with tritium detection in aqueous streams, technology that can catch a release while there’s still time to act rather than relying on grab-sample testing. The company is based in Columbia, Maryland.
Nutrode — Founded by UT professors Feng-Yuan Zhang and Matthew Mench, Nutrode is developing advanced electrode materials and electrochemical systems for electrolysis, fuel cells, sensing and green hydrogen, aimed at improving electrolyzer performance and lowering the cost of hydrogen and oxygen generation. The company is based in Knoxville.
Scaled Atomics — Led by Chris Pehrson and Richard Lawson, Scaled Atomics is building the MN-350 Mobile Power Module, a 350 kW mobile nuclear microreactor packed into a single 20-foot CONEX container, designed to deploy by air, land or sea for military, disaster response and off-grid use, to run up to 10 years without refueling. The company is based in Oak Ridge. Read more from Teknovation.
Ecoatex — Founded by Raha Saremi, Ecoatex is converting agricultural residue and marine biomass into bio-based materials like nanocellulose and specialty fibers, building nontoxic, biodegradable alternatives to petroleum-based materials that can slot into existing manufacturing lines. The company is based in Athens, Georgia.
Erasmus Energy — Founded by Marcos Perez and Carlos Ayala, Erasmus Energy is developing faster, more affordable ways to produce radioisotopes for energy and medical uses, starting with compact radioisotope power systems for transportation, aerospace and medical devices. The company is based in Los Angeles, California.
PAN Biologics — Founded by Kuntal De, PAN Biologics is building a biological platform for functional diagnostics and mechanism-based drug screening, with an initial focus on treatment-resistant cancers and infectious diseases. The company is based in Knoxville.
Between the two cohorts, there’s a lot of ground to cover in the months ahead, and we’ll be watching closely.
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