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13 energy data startups to watch in 2013

Katie Fehrenbacher — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 08:00:50 +0000

Dozens of startups building analytics that can collect and analyze energy data emerged or grew their businesses in 2012. It was a hot trend for a variety of reasons including the development of big data technologies as a massive and growing business, the notion that energy analytics are a more attractive capital-lite business than smart grid hardware, and the reality that utilities need to digitize their power grids to provide better service in the modern age.

Here’s a list of 13 startups that we covered last year that I would keep an eye on in 2013. A couple of these, like Opower and Nest, I also included on my list last year:

1). Stem: Formerly called Powergetics and founded in 2009, Stem‘s software tracks and analyzes energy use in buildings and helps companies predict and control their energy budgets. In addition, the company helps buildings owners tap into installed battery farms to use stored energy when grid electricity is expensive. The company got a new CEO and announced its first customer — InterContinental Hotels — in San Francisco in 2012.

2). Opower: I’ve covered these energy software leaders closely, so I won’t rehash them here. But in 2012 the company made strides like launching smart thermostat utility software trials with Honeywell, and it helped customers collectively save 2 terawatt hours of energy by the end of last year.

Honeywell & Opower’s iPad smart thermostat app

3). AutoGrid: A newbie launched by some progressive former utility execs at PG&E, AutoGrid is working on an Amazon-style recommendation engine for utilities’ energy data. Its Energy Data Platform (EDP) can take petabytes of grid data — both structured and unstructured — and crunches it to predict and analyze what is happening on the grid in real time. The company is backed by Foundation Capital, Voyager Capital and Stanford University.

4). Nest: While most people think of Nest as a smart thermostat maker company, some of the startup’s powerful innovations are the analytics that collect energy data and train the thermostat to learn your habits and shave off energy when it works for you. That data will also be valuable to utilities in some respect. Nest launched its redesigned thermostat in late 2012.

5). Viridity Energy: Viridity Energy has been around for awhile, and it uses energy data to create a new type of demand response service, or the process when utilities connect with building owners to turn down a building’s energy consumption. In 2012, Viridity got a large round from Japanese giant Mitsui. (photo of Viridity Energy SVP Western Regional Division Laura Manz)

6). EcoFactor: EcoFactor is like the service version of Nest (without the designed hardware) and is working with utilities and service providers like cable companies to manage connected thermostats in real time. In late 2012, EcoFactor raised another $8 million from Aster Capital, Claremont Creek Ventures and RockPort Capital Partners.

7). Bidgely: Launched in late 2012, Bidgely has created algorithms that can dig into real-time smart meter energy-consumption data, can reduce consumers’ home energy use by between 4 percent to 12 percent, and it can also deliver other beneficial home services to consumers. The company is backed by Khosla Ventures.

8). Space-Time Insight: Fremont, Calif.-based Space-Time Insight develops geospatial analytics around sectors like electricity, oil and gas and transportation. California’s Independent System Operator deployed the company’s software to power a control room featuring an 80-foot screen that displays map views and real-time information about energy infrastructure. The company raised a series B round of $14 million last year.

9). PlotWatt: Like Bidgely, PlottWatt has developed smart algorithms that can crunch energy data down to the appliance level to determine which of your household devices is sucking up more than its fair share of power. The company is four years old but raised a series A round of $3 million from Felicis Ventures and Acorn Ventures last summer.

10). WegoWise: WegoWise is looking to lower energy costs for apartment buildings, helping both landlords and tenants. The company uses lots of data to help property managers see where their units can stand to be improved. WegoWise bought data startup Melon Power late last year.

11). Retroficiency: Retroficiency has created data analytics that basically can give a building (or a group of buildings) an energy audit remotely, without auditors having to come to the site of the building. It uses a lot of publicly and privately available data to do that. The method is a much more low cost and quicker way to plan energy building reductions.

12). GridNavigator: GridNavigator’s software and cloud-based service perform energy consumption forecasts throughout the day to help building managers manage their power consumption. The company was founded in 2009 and is based in Redmond, Wash.

13). Honest Buildings: Honest Buildings doesn’t just collect energy data, but it has created a repository for building-related data enabling renter and home buyers, property managers, and organizations to learn about and compare the energy efficiencies of buildings. It also has info about green building materials and certifications like LEED.

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Cleantech and investment in 2013

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:05:16 +0000

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Building data startups team up around real-time energy data

Katie Fehrenbacher — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:16:00 +0000

Two startups with tools that can unleash the hidden data within buildings have teamed up around real time energy data. Lucid Design Group, which installs energy dashboards and wireless sensor systems for buildings, has integrated its customers’ real time energy data into Honest Building‘s site that aggregates data about the energy use and green characteristics of buildings.

Essentially, the bulk of Lucid Design Group’s building customers (2,000 of ‘em) — like Brown University, Turner Construction and the city of Bloomington, Indiana — will be displaying their real time energy data on Honest Building’s site. For example, in the screenshot below, you can see the energy use of DPR Construction’s office building in San Diego by 15 minute intervals, broken down by appliance, and compared to national and local averages.

Honest Buildings has created a site that pulls in data about energy use and green characteristics of buildings from a variety of sources including data from the building owners, green building technology service providers and public databases. The Honest Buildings team displays all this data for free online, and hopes to promote transparency and some friendly competition between building managers by exposing this data (they also have a subscription premium service).

Real time energy data could add a level of granular data that the Honest Building’s site previously didn’t have. As the two companies explained to me in a phone interview this week, a lot of the publicly-available data about building energy use is annual, which doesn’t paint too accurate a picture of what it’s like to rent space or live in the building. But real-time energy data allows building managers or potential tenants of the buildings to get a much better sense of the costs and energy usage of the buildings.

Honest Buildings earlier this month raised its first round of venture funding led by RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Previously the company, which is about a year old, raised an angel round from Spring Ventures; Jason Scott, managing partner at EKO Asset Management Partners; and Lisa Gansky, author of The Mesh. Lucid Design Group, founded in 2004, has raised $1.5 million led by Dry Creek Ventures.

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Honest Buildings raises first venture round for green building data

Katie Fehrenbacher — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:05:36 +0000

Honest Buildings, a startup that aggregates information about buildings’ energy use and green characteristics, raised its first round of venture funding led by RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow Ventures. Previously the company, which is about a year old, had raised an angel round from Spring Ventures; Jason Scott, managing partner at EKO Asset Management Partners; and Lisa Gansky, author of The Mesh.

Honest Building’s site pulls data about energy use and green characteristics of buildings from sources including their owners, green building technology service providers and public databases. By putting all that data online, and letting anyone access it for free, Honest Building’s team hopes to promote transparency and some friendly competition between building managers. For example, potential occupants could look up buildings for rent or sale, and prefer to go with buildings that have solar panels or lower energy bills due to their use of energy efficient technologies.

The other aspect of the Honest Building’s site is a subscription service, which will enable green building service providers to engage with building owners. For example, a real estate company could put a request for proposal for a new lighting control system or smart energy management system, and the service providers could use the site to bid on the job. The company plans to make the bulk of its revenue from the subscription service.

This is one of the first cleantech-related investments I’ve seen from either RockPort Capital and Mohr Davidow in awhile. So-called “cleanweb” startups, which use information technology to address resource constraints, is one of the few areas of cleantech that venture capitalists still seem willing to fund. The economics of the deals look more like traditional web and mobile investing: smaller amounts of capital required and hopefully a quicker return on the investment.

Honest Buildings didn’t disclose the round size or terms. Previously the startup raised $750,000 and according to an SEC filing has been working on bumping that up to $2 million.

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Investors back the Google Street View for energy

Katie Fehrenbacher — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:14:26 +0000

Esses, a startup building a sort of Google Street View-style business around building energy consumption, has raised $6 million in its first round of funding. Investors in the round include Vocap Ventures and DFJ Athena.

The company uses multi-spectral thermal cameras on top of cars to snap images of visible energy leaks coming from buildings. Esses uses these images to create databases about the energy consumption of buildings, neighborhoods and cities and the company has algorithms that can crunch all that energy leakage image data and turn it into useful information for building owners, like energy efficiency reports. Esses sells a software as a service product.

In addition, the thermal data will enable essess to create an efficiency metric for each building — sort of like an MPG for cars. Esses CEO Storm Duncan said at the Wall Street Journal Eco:nomics conference recently that he wants to put an MPG on every building in the country, and said “It’s similar to what Zillow did for the real estate market.”

Esses is painting itself as a “big data” company for commercial and residential building energy. Other startups looking to aggregate energy data about buildings include Honest Buildings, NYC BLDGS, and FirstFuel Software.

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Using the web and data to create competition for green buildings

Katie Fehrenbacher — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 08:00:50 +0000

The combo of competition, the web and data could be the key to getting more green building technologies, like LED lighting and solar rooftop panels, deployed, according to a new startup called Honest Buildings. The six-month-old company, which plans to officially launch later this month, has created a site that aggregates building and energy info from sources like building owners, green building technology service providers and public databases to create a go-to site that is supposed to create both transparency and an ecosystem around green building technology.

Part of the website will be free and anyone will be able to enter a zipcode into the system and see the green attributes of a building or block. That’s supposed to help create a level of transparency so that building owners will start to feel a sense of competition to keep up with the green Joneses. Potential occupants could look up buildings for rent or sale, and decide to opt for buildings with solar panels or lower energy bills due to energy efficient technologies. Using competition to spur sustainable building tech was the heart of the idea when co-founder and CEO Riggs Kubiak left his real estate job to start the business, says Chief Marketing Officer Joshua Boltuch.

The other part of Honest Buildings will be a premium, subscription service, which will enable green building service providers to engage with building owners. For example, a real estate company could put a request for proposal (RFP) for a new lighting control system or smart energy management system, and the service providers could use the site to participate in the RFP. That will be where the bulk of Honest Building’s revenues come from.

Honest Buildings has raised an angel round of funding from Spring Ventures (the folks behind the CleanWeb phenomenon) as well as Jason Scott, Managing Partner at EKO Asset Management Partners, and The Mesh author Lisa Gansky. The startup will open up its website to the public on March 19.

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