Hear that buzz? It’s the sound of Seattle’s green energy ecosystem.
Last month, Omnidian and LevelTen made waves with large funding rounds; this week, it’s online electricity marketplace WattBuy’s time, jolting onto the scene with a $1.2 million seed round.
The Seattle-based company hopes to use its platform to bring transparency to the electricity market and help residents find cheaper, greener electricity options. Currently in Texas, New York and Connecticut, the company plans to use this round to provide its platform to people across the country, Naman Trivedi, WattBuy’s co-founder, told Built In.
“We want to not only be in every deregulated energy state across the U.S. but also help residents all over the country make actionable decisions on their energy to save on cost,” Trivedi said.
Trivedi and Ben Hood founded WattBuy in 2017 to provide clarity to the opaque energy market. While the Energy Policy Act of 1992 opened the door for states to deregulate their residential electricity markets — effectively giving consumers a choice between different energy providers — they found that people still had limited insight into the information they needed to make an intelligent decision.
It’s a low-friction way for residents to engage in a clean energy movement.”
So, they gathered data from real estate sites, the Department of Energy and users, and then built an algorithm that allowed homeowners and renters alike to see how much energy they’d be expected to use and the best energy options available. The platform provides insights on the most affordable options, as well as the renewable energy alternatives.
In doing so, they provide users with an easier path to adopt renewable energies than they would purchasing solar panels on their own, Trivedi said.
“It’s a low-friction way for residents to engage in a clean energy movement,” Trivedi said. “The whole philosophy behind WattBuy is that we’re the largest single-click action you can take to save money on you energy bill while also going green.”
Since its launch, WattBuy has participated in the Techstars’ Kansas City Accelerator and Chicago’s Moderne Ventures’ Passport Accelerator. The company has since partnered with real estate companies to integrate its platform into the move-in process so people have a choice in their energy provider right away.
The company is also working with the National Renewable Energy Lab on its Open Energy Information project to gather energy data and create a public API that users can access to predict their energy usage.
Eventually, WattBuy hopes to become the Zillow of energy data for homes around the U.S.
“We want to provide actionable insights for everyone at no cost,” Trivedi said. “And based on that information, you can take actions for your home.”
With this round, the company plans to add two or three data science and machine learning engineers to its six-person team.
Clean energy fund Powerhouse Ventures and real estate fund Fort Ventures participated in the round, along with green energy and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs John Sherman from Inergy, Justin Alanis of Rentlytics and James Beshara of Tilt.
Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative started by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and his wife, Wendy Schmidt, are also providing funding to support the company’s work with the National Renewable Energy Lab.
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