“Tomorrow’s energy is decentralised, decarbonised and digital,” says Rockstart Smart Energy Accelerator Director Freerk Bisschop. As an energy professional, staying updated with the latest industry trends also means keeping an eye on the up-and-coming energy innovators.
That’s why we’re so excited to share our picks for the most promising energy startups to watch in 2017.
How did we choose? Easy: our top energy startups to follow do one or more of the following:
- connect prosumers, electric vehicles, storage and demand
- use Big Data, machine learning algorithms and IoT connectivity
- focus on energy cyber security
- build the potential to change the energy marketplace
- boost business models for energy efficiency and/or renewables
And now for the long-awaited list… drumroll!
10 Smart Energy Startups To Watch in 2017
1. Sympower
Demand response aggregator that balances the grid with smart appliances
- Founded: 2015 (Estonia)
- Mission: Facilitate the transition to a sustainable energy system by synchronising household energy consumption with renewable resources
- Exciting Stuff: Real-time balancing for demand-side flexibility, generating extra revenue for users
- The Latest: Commercially launching in Finland, running a pilot in the Netherlands together with TenneT, Stedin and ENGIE.
Source: rockstart.com
2. Vebbu
Monitor, purify and optimise indoor air quality using heat recovery ventilation, IoT sensors and a mobile app
- Founded: 2015 (Croatia)
- Mission: Improve ambient air quality, heat recovery, respiratory health and energy efficiency all at the same time!
- Exciting Stuff: Strong value proposition in notoriously “tough” areas to innovate: hardware, HVAC, B2C app market and CEE
- The Latest: Focusing on retrofit residential markets, starting in 2017 with The Netherlands, Germany and Ireland.
Source: rockstart.com
3. Watty
Making energy data accessible to everyone with a home energy management platform
- Founded: 2013 (Sweden)
- Mission: Give people control over their home energy consumption.
- Exciting Stuff: Watty algorithms can identify the top 6-8 appliances in terms of energy use without requiring additional hardware or wires for each appliance
- The Latest: Recently raised €3M in funding, currently working on deploying across European markets
Source: CleanTechnica
4. DAJIE
DAJIE stands for Distributed Autonomous Join Internet & Energy For Everyone
- Founded: 2015 (Italy)
- Mission: Empower the prosumer by enabling peer-to-peer energy sharing
- Exciting Stuff: Open-source P2P energy data sharing using blockchain (minus the device, as with Sharge). Did we mention that we love that it’s open source?
- The Latest: Currently testing their energy solution through a microgrid pilot program at the University of Rome.
Source: startupjuncture.com
5. Wapo.io
Smart talk for buildings via virtual facility manager
- Founded: 2015 (Greece)
- Mission: Energy data for everyone, not just energy managers
- Exciting Stuff: Possibly the 1st AI chatbot for facility management? We love the social aspect of making FM more accessible to everyone!
- The Latest: WapoBOT has gone live and is now responsive to customers, thanks to Slack integration
Sources: startupjuncture.com, Rockstart
6. Wirewatt
Connecting residential solar projects in emerging economies with capital markets
- Founded: 2014 (Mexico)
- Mission: Reinvent the model of selling electricity in Mexico to provide cheaper, cleaner light.
- Exciting Stuff: The first B2B marketplace in Latin America that helps solar distributors and installers design, quote and create automated technical and financial investor-grade project proposals
- The Latest: Operational with 2M USD in funding, expanding beyond Mexico to US and EU markets
Source: Rockstart
7. Swuto
Fighting fuel poverty with fintech.
- Founded: 2015 (UK/The Netherlands)
- Mission: Swuto automatically tracks and compares your energy bill. When you can save money, Swuto automatically switches you to the cheaper energy supplier.
- Exciting Stuff: Active comparison – constantly searching for the cheapest deal
- The Latest: Recently released simplified version of the platform, making it possible to switch in under 2 minutes!
Source: Swuto.com
8. LO3 Energy
Microgrid project that uses blockchain technology to enable energy trading between neighbours
- Founded: 2015 (USA)
- Mission: Build tools and develop projects to support and accelerate proliferation of the distributed energy, utilities and computation sharing economy of the future.
- Exciting Stuff: One of the 2 startups behind TransActive Grid (the other is blockchain developer ConsenSys) as well as Brooklyn Microgrid and Project Exergy
- The Latest: On one side of the street, five homes with solar panels generate electricity. On the other side, five homes buy power when the opposite homes don’t need it. In the middle is a blockchain network, managing and recording transactions with little human interaction. This is done using Ethereum, which builds in “smart” self-executing contracts between parties.
Source: fast.coexist
9. TEQ Charging
A low-cost solution for electric vehicle charging
- Founded: 2015 (USA)
- Mission: reduce a bottleneck to the electrification of American roadways through a new charging infrastructure and applications that allows the network to move power throughout charging systems
- Exciting Stuff: Intelligent EV charging that reduces the cost by 90% and increases charger capacity by 4x or more is a welcome development to help mainstream EVs
- The Latest: Recently demoed at TechStars IoT Demo Day – stay tuned!
Source: techstars
10. Totem
The world’s first smart energy solution to combine distributed solar energy, energy storage, WiFi, 4G communications, electric vehicle charging, and smart lighting into a an integral platform for smart cities
- Founded: 2015 (USA)
- Mission: Build the future of smart power designed for people
- Exciting Stuff: Coining the “enernet” concept: the foundation for smart city tech that brings it all together: IoT, distributed systems (blockchain), EV charging services, autonomous vehicles, nanogrids, microgrids, virtual power plants, and more: all powered by clean, renewable energy
- The Latest: Platform launched globally in November 2016, with the first Totem model set for release in Summer 2017
Source: TechCrunch, PR Newswire
Hungry for more energy tech innovation?
Check out our webinar on 2017 energy trends featuring DEXMA Sales Director (ex R&D Director) Miguel Cruz:
