NYU Tandon's Urban Future Lab Announces Finalists for 10th Annual Urban Future Prize Competition

Eight companies compete for $120,000 in prizes as the competition marks a decade backing top climatetech startups

Selected from 501 applicants, eight climatetech startups will pitch for a share of $120,000 in prize money at NYU Tandon School of Engineering's Urban Future Summit on October 22 in New York City.

Judges will award $50,000 each to winners in the Climate Adaptation and Climate Mitigation tracks, and for the first time in the competition's history, $10,000 runner-up prizes in each category.

Now in its 10th consecutive year, the Urban Future Prize Competition identifies and supports top climatetech startups, with support from MUFG Bank, The New York Community Trust, and New York State Energy Research and Development Authority.

Over the past decade, the competition has backed 23 winners, who have gone on to raise more than $515 million in follow-on funding - a roughly 515-to-1 return on the prize money awarded. In addition to funding, winners and runners-up receive admission into the ACRE Incubator, New York's longest-running and most successful climatetech incubator, housed within UFL, where they get mentorship, fundraising support, hiring assistance, and help with commercial pilots.

The competition advances NYU Tandon's focus on research related to Industrial, Urban & Environmental Sustainability, one of its six Impact Areas. Tandon's approach, exemplified by its Sustainable Engineering Initiative, focuses on technological advances that enhance both efficiency and resilience while supporting economic prosperity.

NYU Tandon's SEI researchers and UFL companies are aligned in their mission to develop real-world climate solutions, creating opportunities for knowledge exchange between academic research and commercial innovation.

2026 Urban Future Prize Competition Finalists

Climate Adaptation Prize: focused on solutions that help communities and ecosystems adapt to and build resilience against the impacts of climate change.

• Airbuild: Autonomous biological nutrient recovery systems that convert wastewater nutrients into carbon-sequestering biochar fertilizer, helping municipalities meet EPA compliance and cut costs while creating new revenue for farmers.
• Class 3 Technologies: Engineering-grade, building-level climate risk assessments powered by Iris, a proprietary simulation engine, helping large property owners quantify physical vulnerability and evaluate resilience strategies across their portfolios, while extending that same risk intelligence to underserved communities.
• Rarefied: A sunlight-driven propulsion mechanism enabling persistent flight in near-space, building a new atmospheric data layer to improve weather forecasting, disaster resilience, and climate risk modeling - data especially valuable in equatorial and developing regions, where sparse observations weaken storm and drought forecasts.
• Supercool Earth: An end-to-end precipitation enhancement platform that uses biology to increase rain and snowfall on demand for ski resorts, water utilities, hydropower operators, and agriculture, giving water-scarce communities a tool to stabilize supply before rationing or crop failure set in.

Climate Mitigation Prize: focused on solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

• Arcticar: An intelligent, clean energy platform for the cold chain, replacing diesel-powered trailer refrigeration with lower-cost electric units and integrated battery storage, eliminating the emissions and noise pollution reefers create.
• Emulate Cities: AI infrastructure that helps local governments automate permit review, cutting permitting timelines from weeks to minutes to accelerate deployment of housing, clean energy, and climate-resilient infrastructure.
• Every Electric, Inc.: Operator of New York City's largest plug-in powerbank network, giving households access to affordable backup power while strengthening grid reliability for all New Yorkers.
• Ultropia: An ultrasonic mechanical water extraction platform that removes moisture from materials, targeting the energy-intensive gas dryers used across the industrial laundry industry.

"Ten years ago this competition started as a bet that the best climatetech founders would build for cities,” said Austin Evarts, Director of the ACRE Incubator. “This year's finalists show how far the sector has come. These eight companies are already selling into real markets, from grid reliability and cold chain to storm forecasting and water supply. There's no better way to mark our tenth anniversary than by awarding more prize money than ever and backing four companies instead of two." This year's finalists mark the competition's 10th anniversary with a cohort of companies already generating revenue and operating at commercial or near-commercial scale.

“For many New Yorkers, climate change isn't a future risk, it's extreme heat that strains health and safety, flash flooding overwhelming neighborhood infrastructure, and a power grid stretched thinner every summer.” added Evarts “This year's finalists are working on solutions that address that reality head on, from building-level risk assessments that help property owners and communities prepare, to grid technology that keeps power flowing during peak demand, to cleaner cold chain technology that cuts the diesel emissions polluting neighborhood air. The Urban Future Prize Competition exists as a platform to help solutions like these reach the communities who need them most.”