The next wave of innovation has come from internet companies like MyWebGrocer, which offers digital grocery services, and Dealer.com, which offers digital marketing services for the auto industry. Dealer.com became a legend in Burlington after it was sold for $1 billion a couple of years ago. Mike Lane, one of Dealer.com’s founders and its former chief operations officer, who is now on the VCET board, is an angel investor who has funded eight start-ups. One of his investments is Faraday Inc., which uses data analytics to help companies target customers.

“In the future, there will be several $50 million to $100 million exits here,” Mr. Lane said, “along with other larger ones mixed in.”

He credits Vermont’s community and socially conscious spirit with his success. “We didn’t buy the philosophy that we had to be in a hot spot,” said Mr. Lane, who returned to Vermont after working in Cambridge, Mass. “Even Zuckerberg realized that he could have been anywhere to build Facebook.”

That can-do spirit also inspired Marguerite Dibble, 26, who began her firm GameTheory while she was still a student at Champlain College. Its mission is to use gaming to inspire behavior changes, such as teaching teens financial literacy.

“In Burlington, I can call anyone and learn from their experience,” said Ms. Dibble, who was born in a small Vermont town with no ZIP code. “The degrees of separation are lessened here. There’s a shared Vermonti-ness.”

The energy to power GameTheory’s innovation comes from Burlington’s green grid, which is owned by the city. The state has long been one of the country’s greenest. But in 2014, Burlington upped the ante by turning only to wind, water and biomass to power the city — one of the first cities in the nation to do so. There are also incentives for reducing energy. Landlords, for example, can choose to have free energy audits, and more than 100 have done so.

Other Burlington businesses also work hard to save energy on their own. Seventh Generation, which makes environmentally conscious household products and was founded in Burlington, gives its employees bonuses for helping reduce greenhouse gases. Like many other companies in Burlington, Seventh Generation also aims to be socially responsible and was formed as a B Corp, which means it has to meet social, environmental, accountability and transparency standards.