Two Nova Scotian startups, Unified Software Technologies and NeoThermal Energy Storage, are the co-winners of the $100,000 Smart Energy Demo Challenge, which will help them move their product closer to a market launch.
Innovacorp, which organized the competition for startups that promote energy efficiency, said Thursday night its panel of judges had chosen co-winners and each will get about $50,000 in non-dilutive funding to work on a demonstration project with their product.
The contest was aimed at companies that have a working product but have not yet launched it in the marketplace. The five finalists were each required to find a partner (an established company or organization) that could test the product between now and March 31, 2016. The prize money will finance the cost of that demonstration.
“It’s a game-changer for us because it establishes our presence in the province as a going concern,” said Laurie Perrin, the co-founder of Unified Software of Wolfville.
Unified Software’s technology is designed to allow software to run more efficiently on high-capacity microchips, thereby requiring less electricity to operate. To increase capacity in recent years, manufacturers have developed microchips with two, four or even six cores instead of one. The problem is that most software is designed to operate on single-core chips so any gain in processor speed is lost by the inadequacy of the software. UST, founded by twin brothers Laurie and Layton Perrin, has produced technology designed to correct that flaw, which should reduce the energy consumption of high-transaction users.
In its demonstration projects, UST will work with Internetworking Atlantic Inc. to demonstrate web and application server software and with Atlantic Computation Excellence Network, or ACENET to demonstrate lock-free software libraries.
NeoThermal Energy Storage was spun out of the Dalhousie University engineering school by grad students Louis Desgrosseilliers and Moe Kabbara.
The company will work with Dr. Alain Joseph of Nova Scotia Community College Waterfront Campus to demonstrate its new chemical heat storage technology. NeoThermal has developed a device that can heat a room efficiently. The device captures and stores energy either by taking on waste energy or by being plugged in to the grid at low-cost, non-peak hours. It then releases heat during the day to warm a room.
“Winning has basically let us proceed with our long-term goal of moving forward with our product and bringing it to the market,” said Kabbara. He added the company needs to demo the product over several months to be in a position to raise investment capital.
The other finalists were:
-- Atlantic Business Centre of Excellence and Commercialization of Innovation, which is developing hardware and software that combine solar energy generation and battery storage to optimize energy efficiency in buildings;
-- Colibri Software, which is developing software that works with sensors and monitors in buildings to optimize and reduce energy use;
-- And, Renewable Alternative Energy Sources and Systems, which is developing building products that store and conduct heat.
“What [the competition has] done is bring innovators out of the woodwork in the smart energy sector,” said Michael Dennis, the Innovacorp investment manager that oversaw the competition. “We have a lot of talent here and we have to bring it out.”
Full disclosure: Innovacorp is a client of Entrevestor.
