Fredericton’s SimpTek, a startup that aims to help utilities and customers understand energy usage through data collection, has been boosting sales in recent months.

The company produces software that acts as a bridge between utilities and consumers. It provides power management solutions that deliver knowledge, convenience, and control to consumers, while also offering insights about power usage to utilities.

Founded in 2014, SimpTek will soon announce a new client, said to be the largest multi- building owner in Atlantic Canada. 

“We provide a communication link between clients and utility companies,” said CEO and Co-Founder Asif Hasan.

Hasan said SimpTek’s solutions will help increase engagement between utilities and their customers as they work toward the same goal of saving energy.

“We’re suggesting it’s time for them to understand their clients, as Amazon and Netflix do, if they want to do more business with them,” Hasan said.

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SimpTek allows its client utility companies and apartment block owners to provide their own customers and tenants with home dashboards. The dashboards enable householders to understand exactly how and where energy is being used in their homes.

The utility and property companies can anonymously collect individual and aggregated data about home energy use, and find out which householders make the best candidates for new products or energy-saving offers.

“When a utility company runs a campaign, all customers get the publicity material, which people find irritating. But if homeowners know their own problems, they stop feeling annoyed and appreciate the contact,” Hasan said.

Helping save energy is part of Hasan’s motivation in building the company, which he started in 2014 with Co-Founders Keelen Gagnon and Lionel Fernandes.

He says energy efficiency is a culture we’re all adapting to.

“People want to be green but they need easy access to information to make decisions,” said the Bangladesh native, who arrived in New Brunswick five years ago, after winning a scholarship to study electrical and computer engineering at University of New Brunswick.

He said the team is celebrating the successful completion of the first phase of its pilot program with NB Power, which has resulted in the venture receiving validation through the Smart Grid Innovation Network.

The company also recently raised more than $700,000 in equity funding, and was named to Deloitte Canada’s 2016 Companies to Watch list, part of its Technology Fast 50 Awards. It was the only company in Atlantic Canada to receive this recognition.

The company now has 10 full-time staff in Fredericton and four part-time in Halifax, Saint John and Ontario.

SimpTek has many competitors for a multi-billion-dollar market. Hasan thinks Simptek’s advantage lies in its system’s ease of use.

He is planning to expand SimpTek’s reach across North America and the Middle East in 2017.