Fredericton-based startup accelerator Energia Ventures has announced its five-company fall cohort -- the second this year, as the program moves to offer more frequent programming in response to increased demand.

The accelerator is run by the University of New Brunswick’s J. Herbert Smith Centre for Technology Management & Entrepreneurship, commonly known as TME. Energia accepts companies from around the world that are involved in energy, cleantech, cybersecurity and artificial intelligence.

“We’re pleased to be launching our sixth cohort of Energia Ventures, and our third in a twelve-month period,” said Joe Allen, the Centre’s Director of Accelerators, in a press release.

“Once again, the call for applications was absolutely overwhelming, both from the number of applicants, and the quality of the ventures looking to participate in our program. It was a really tough challenge narrowing the field to our five selected companies.”

Participants in the program, which runs from Sept. 22 to Dec. 9, will receive mentoring, educational programming, business support and funding to help them develop their ventures.

The content will be delivered virtually, so participants will be able to operate from their current headquarters, removing the need for them to travel to Fredericton.

The virtual element is particularly relevant for the latest cohort, because four of the five companies are from outside Atlantic Canada.

Here’s a look at the participating startups:

Allread (Barcelona, Spain) - AllRead is developing deep learning models for reading text in uncontrolled environments -- that is, in the real world, outside of the laboratory conditions where most artificial intelligence systems for reading thrive.

Gaia Refinery (Saint John) - Gaia is working on technology to remove carbon from the atmosphere via direct air capture and use it to produce high-purity methane for the space industry.

Prakshep (Bengaluru, India) - Prakshep helps agriculture companies use neural networks -- a form of artificial intelligence inspired by the structure of the brain -- to automate their activities with the help of satellite imagery and machine learning.

Privacy Optimization (Warsaw, Poland) - Privacy Optimization helps organizations navigate the complex landscape of privacy regulations via audits, consulting services and advice for better protecting the privacy of end-users.

WeavAir (Toronto) - WeavAir sells air filtration equipment to slow or prevent the spread of airborne contaminants and pathogens, while also reducing maintenance costs and cutting HVAC energy consumption.