Two weeks after Dartmouth-based Aurea Technologies opened its Kickstarter campaign for the next generation of its portable wind turbines, the company has raised over 13 times its goal, as CEO Cat Adalay eyes deliveries in January or February.

The campaign to fund production of the Shine 2.0 originally had a target of $30,000, but Aurea actually received $405,000 worth of pre-orders for 600 units. And in an interview Thursday, Adalay said that was accomplished with limited preparation time.

“We saw a really great reaction to the original product, but what we were continuously hearing from our first round of customers was how they wanted certain upgrades and changes made to the product,” said Adalay. “We had already started development on the Shine 2.0 product, but in terms of actually releasing it and making the decision to do this in September, the trigger wasn’t officially pulled until late June, early July, so we only had really two months to prepare for this.”

Aurea co-founders Adalay and Rachel Carr launched the original Shine turbine on Kickstarter in 2021. The device is small and light enough for easy transport, at about three pounds. It is capable of functioning in a wide range of weather conditions, anywhere from 0 to 40 degrees Celsius and with wind speeds of between 8 and 28 miles per hour. It incorporates a 12,000 mAh internal battery, which can be charged ahead of time.

The changes incorporated with Shine 2.0 include a USB-C charging port to comply with new European Union regulations, an app that can display real-time telemetry from the turbine via a bluetooth connection, such as its battery state and the estimated wind speed, and an increase in the power output to 50 watts from 40. The revised charging port can also transfer power about five times faster than the original Shine port.

“People also wanted different options for mounting (the turbine),” said Adalay. “The biggest one being they wanted to set it up taller from the ground, so it can overcome wind disruptions such as brush and trees. So we’ve developed a mount accessory that will enable a turbine to be put higher above the ground.”

Shine 2.0 will initially launch in Canada, the United States and Europe, the same as the original Shine turbine. Adalay said the retail channels needed to commercialize the Shine 2.0 are already in place, and the company will not need to increase staffing, instead transitioning existing employees to build the new design.

In total, Aurea has raised about $5 million of equity funding since its founding, not counting the Kickstarter pre-sales. Latecomers can still order a Shine 2.0 via late pledging on Kickstarter, Adalay added.

“This is the result of our team’s really hard work,” she said. “They only had two months to prepare, and the entire team got behind the sales and marketing aspects of it, or backfilling roles due to us having to pull team members to the campaign. This was a team win.”

Disclosure: Cat Adalay is the daughter of the founders and owners of Entrevestor.