{"id":38720,"date":"2023-10-20T14:58:31","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/energy-saving-data-device-start-up-wattcost-on-a-winning-streak-and-readying-for-launch-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:58:31","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:58:31","slug":"energy-saving-data-device-start-up-wattcost-on-a-winning-streak-and-readying-for-launch-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/energy-saving-data-device-start-up-wattcost-on-a-winning-streak-and-readying-for-launch-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Energy saving data device start-up Wattcost on a winning streak and readying for launch &#8211; StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"445\" height=\"352\" itemprop=\"image\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/l_light-globe-idea-445.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"l_light-globe-idea-445\"\/><\/div>\n<p>Wattcost, a Sydney-based start-up that provides real-time updates on energy efficiency steps homes and businesses can take, has been on a winning streak in the past month as they prepare to launch.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The year-old hardware and cloud-based data analytics start-up has been named in the Global Cleantech Top 10 Asia Pacific start-ups, and the top 300 globally. They also won the Fishburners Pitch series competition last week.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Co-founder David Soutar told <i>StartupSmart <\/i>they were ready to launch their full website and start selling within the month, and customers should start receiving the device before Easter 2014.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Soutar says the hardware device, which is attached to electricity boxes, is what puts their business ahead of their competitors.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a lot activity in the space internationally. There are even a couple of companies in America that are attacking a similar issue to us, but they don\u2019t have a hardware product and are relying on data from other people so they can\u2019t do it in real time. But the real-time updates are critical to change behaviour,\u201d Soutar says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite the change in federal government, the likely axing of the carbon tax and the uncertain fate of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, Soutar says he\u2019s confident consumers are still searching for a product like Wattcost\u2019s.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is huge market opportunity with this tech,\u201d he says, noting that no one had solved the problem for households.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverything on the market was too techy or expensive and didn\u2019t tell people how to actually save money.  We aren\u2019t planning a dramatic shift in our approach. Australians would love to be able to do something, but haven\u2019t been able to yet, and we\u2019re ready to enable that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The start-up is yet to take investment, but Soutar says they\u2019ve begun conversations with a few angel investors as they look to roll out their product.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re planning on coming out pretty fast onto the marketplace. We\u2019re appealing to end consumers and we\u2019re going to go direct to them, we\u2019ve also lined up a series of retail partnerships,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Soutar, who graduated from a <a href=\"technology\/sydney-start-ups-graduate-from-founder-institute-program\/2013071010184.html\">Founder Institute<\/a> accelerator program last year, adds the biggest hurdle they\u2019ve overcome has been finding the right team members.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFinding the right people and building a team has been challenging. We\u2019ve been very fortunate to get the awesome guys we\u2019ve got who are all experts in their own areas who share a common passion and belief in why we\u2019re doing this,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wattcost, a Sydney-based start-up that provides real-time updates on energy efficiency steps homes and businesses can take, has been on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38720"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}