Introducing The Ignition Pass: A New Residency Grant to Bridge the Pre-Funding Gap

Bringing a Tough Tech breakthrough from the lab to a commercial solution requires more than great science; it requires resources, infrastructure, and partners willing to take an early bet. Yet too many promising teams struggle to access the labs, fabrication tools, and expertise needed to validate their technologies before they can raise significant capital.

For years, The Engine has provided Residency grants to qualified teams on an as-needed basis to help bridge this gap. This month, we expanded this effort by launching The Engine Ignition Pass, a new Residency grant that connects select teams with external corporations, foundations, individuals, and other strategic organizations to sponsor a year of their enrollment in The Engine’s Residency program.

With Shell as the inaugural sponsor, the first Ignition Pass will support a Tough Tech team working on innovations that advance the future of energy. By connecting early-stage teams with committed partners, the Ignition Pass creates a new model for collaboration, ensuring that breakthrough technologies don’t get stuck in the lab, but instead move toward a lasting impact.

Why The Ignition Pass?

Tough Tech is solving the world’s most critical challenges. At The Engine, we work with startups every day that are decarbonizing industries, curing the world’s toughest diseases, and unlocking sustainable sources of critical minerals. These technologies are transforming entire sectors, changing lives, and building a healthier, more resilient world along the way. In the last decade, we’ve worked alongside over 800 Tough Tech startups, observing firsthand the barriers these companies face in translating scientific breakthroughs into scalable enterprises.

Unlike typical software startups, Tough Tech teams need capital-intensive infrastructure like wet labs and fabrication space just to get off the ground, which can be prohibitively expensive before they are fundraise-ready. It’s estimated that up to 90% of all startups fail — but if you consider that many research breakthroughs never leave the lab as startups to begin with, the failure rate for Tough Tech has historically been even higher.

The Engine is committed to helping Tough Tech teams overcome these early obstacles. Since our founding, The Engine has offered the equivalent of over $1M in Residency grants to help early-stage companies access our Residency program before they secure significant funding. These grants are designed to ensure that a greater number of qualified Tough Tech teams can access the critical infrastructure, resources, and community they need to validate their technology, raise capital, and scale their business.

“At The Engine, we’ve seen for years how transformative it can be when early-stage founders have access to the right resources at the right time.”

The Engine CEO Emily Knight
Emily Knight CEO, The Engine

Fortunately, we’re not alone in our mission to help breakthrough technologies get off the ground. Over years of convening the Tough Tech ecosystem, we’ve met countless people and organizations committed to solving the world’s greatest problems, with the resources to make a difference for a fledgling startup. This includes corporations looking to solve a problem in their industry, or philanthropists seeking to support Tough Tech sectors they care about in human or planetary health.

These partners can be a game-changer for early-stage teams: beyond capital, partners can provide valuable industry expertise in the challenges and operational realities on the ground. They can serve as pilot customers, generating meaningful data that allows the startup to iterate quickly, demonstrate real-world use cases, and catalyze a cycle of investment and development.

Together, partners and startups could dramatically accelerate the development of solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. The Ignition Pass closes the gap between them. With the support of committed partners like Shell, the Ignition Pass will jump-start the trajectories of Tough Tech startups that may otherwise struggle to hit early milestones.

Shell Sponsors The First Ignition Pass to Shape the Future of Energy

As the first sponsor, Shell provides one model for how the Ignition Pass will work. In collaboration with Shell, The Engine will select a startup whose innovation aligns with strategic energy priorities. The selected startup will receive business support, expert mentorship, and funding for a full year of Residency at The Engine.

“This Shell-sponsored Ignition Pass is designed to surface high-potential energy technologies at the earliest stages of development. It showcases the power of open innovation and enables Shell to engage directly with visionary founders at The Engine working on solutions that could help shape the future of energy.”

Ajay Mehta, Vice President of Research and Innovation, Shell

The Ignition Pass allows partners like Shell to help de-risk a technology of their choosing by subsidizing the chosen startup’s Residency at The Engine. This includes access to state-of-the-art facilities that can accelerate commercialization by months or years: BSL-2 lab benches, fabrication spaces, rapid-prototyping tools, shop benches, or as is often the case with Tough Tech, a combination of all of the above.

Selected teams will also benefit from The Engine’s Resident programming, expert mentorship, ecosystem, and curated network of investors that understand the needs of Tough Tech. These programs are designed to transform technologists into confident business leaders, equipped with the skills to attract funding, navigate regulatory hurdles, and build a world-class team.

“At The Engine, we’ve seen for years how transformative it can be when early-stage founders have access to the right resources at the right time,” said Emily Knight, CEO at The Engine. “That’s why since our founding, we have provided grants to offset the costs of Residency for promising early-stage teams with limited funding or on a time-bounded basis for teams between fundraising rounds. With the Ignition Pass, we’re expanding this effort by connecting qualified teams with experts at industry-leading companies like Shell that can accelerate their growth and unlock new commercial opportunities.”

Get Involved

History has shown us that solutions to our greatest challenges don’t spring up in a vacuum — they require partners that are willing to take a chance on a small team of innovators and their breakthrough invention. With The Ignition Pass, we’re connecting game-changing solutions with partners committed to their success, from idea to investment to impact.

If you’re an early-stage founder interested in applying for the first Ignition Pass sponsored by Shell, the deadline to apply is Friday, October 31st, 2025. More information about eligibility requirements can be found here.

To get involved and sponsor an Ignition Pass for a Tough Tech team of your choosing, contact Andrew Takacs, at andrew@engine.xyz.

Follow The Engine on LinkedIn for more details about The Ignition Pass and about The Engine’s broader commitment to supporting Tough Tech.

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