WattBuy, a web-based service that helps homeowners better understand and predict energy costs, has secured series A funding for $3.25 million, according to a press release.
Leading the round was Evergy Ventures; contributing investors include Updater, Avesta Fund, Yoav Lurie, John Sherman and Bill Gatreaux. Current investors Fort Ventures, Techstars Ventures and Powerhouse Ventures also participated.
Since 2017, the company has raised a total of $5 million.
As reported by Inman in August of this year, WattBuy’s calculator builds profiles of home energy usage in part by integrating U.S. Energy Information Administration residential electricity usage data with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Building Performance Database. Zillow’s API is accessed to overlap that data with individual homes then.
The funding will go toward improving the efficiency and quality of the company’s machine learning system. The system also pulls in data from Dark Sky, an Apple-owned app for precise weather reporting and climate data, and the U.S. Department of Energy Open Energy Data catalog.
“WattBuy is providing an important service to consumers by helping them find the best electricity plan for them, including factors such as price and sustainability,” Dennis Odell, vice president at Evergy Ventures, said in the press release.
The concept of energy usage in homebuying and how real estate intersects with climate change continues to increase as a matter of importance within the industry.
ClimateCheck, launched in October, allows instant access to a property’s vulnerability to environmental impacts related to climate change. (Disclosure: ClimateCheck was founded by Cal Inman, the son of Brad Inman, the founder and chairman of Inman Group. Inman Group is not affiliated with ClimateCheck in any way).
Blaze: Wildfires is an app that helps homeowners track active fires and assess their ongoing risks. TopHap is a property analytics app that includes granular assessments of multiple environmental factors for vacant land and existing neighborhoods, such as ozone index, air quality, NO2 risk and even earthquake probability.
First Street Foundation is a non-profit in the climate research field. It has started a program called Flood Lab to make its data on flood risk available to academia and the general public. Aerial is an iOS app that helps people measure their carbon footprint, including how home appliances and travel contribute to it. User can also purchase offsets from within the app.
WattBuy intends to assist new homeowners in choosing a utility provider in states where possible. According to the press release,
“Today, over 140 million Americans in 14 states can use WattBuy to choose among over 100 electricity providers and approximately 5,000 plans to find one that matches their preferences.”
Have a technology product you would like to discuss? Email Craig Rowe
Craig C. Rowe started in commercial real estate at the dawn of the dot-com boom, helping an array of commercial real estate companies fortify their online presence and analyze internal software decisions. He now helps agents with technology decisions and marketing through reviewing software and tech for Inman.
