Gridspy provides an online realtime power monitoring system for homes and businesses.  They are looking for both trading partners and investors, especially with marketing or sales background.

The Pitch:
Gridspy provides you with an interactive view of power, water, gas and other resource usage in your building. Gridspy allows you to access and monitor your consumption patterns in real-time using a standard web browser on your PC, laptop or mobile phone. The data is accurate and updated each second as you watch.

The power data is split into multiple channels so you can see which parts of your building are using the most power. Unlike a smart-meter, the Gridspy system can isolate the power usage within your building to individual systems such as AC, hot water, lighting or computers. This allows you to focus your power efforts where they really count. Learn how much you actually use on standby devices, or how changing to compact florescent lights will actually save you money.

Gridspy has passed the development phase and is a working product. We need your help to get to market. The team behind Gridspy bring years of experience creating smart hardware devices and off the shelf solutions and have supported a variety of customers that have succeeded both in New Zealand and internationally.

What sets us apart from our competition is our live data collection and display, our web based approach, and our low cost. We also offer high accuracy and can sample many different loads at once. We can also provide automation and control to any degree of complexity. The aim is to give people back control of their power usage, helping our customers measure and save power.

Accomplishments to date:

• Development of a power monitoring prototype, with all the key technical hurdles overcome.
• Manufacturing plan that will take us from prototype to fully automated production over three months grounded on previous experience.
• Comprehensive manufacturing contacts.
• Several sales leads with potential for large sales volumes over the next quarter.

Development plans:

• Begin the electrical approvals process, including CE Mark, so our solution can be sold both domestically and internationally
• Create staged runs of 25, 100, and 400 units to build our manufacturing pipeline
• Design and test several related devices to round out our offering
• Offer Gridspy to New Zealand industrial clients
• Improve the look and feel of our website and general branding
• Create a stock of rental and trial units to enable sales
• Build a community of home and business owners who are proud to openly discuss their power usage and demonstrate their environmental credibility.

Key Challenges:

• Cash to finance due diligence and further prototype runs so we are ready to handle future high demand.
• Our current small production runs force us to adopt higher prices than we would like
• Competition is entering the “Smart Grid” arena all the time. Our niche is unique and we need to continue to differentiate ourselves.

Principals & Previous Experience:
Stephen Leys as 30 years experience as the managing director of Technman designing custom electronics solutions for a wide range of clients. He is an experienced electrical engineer and has seen many products through concept to large scale production.

Tom Leys is a software developer who has been working with firmware with Stephen for 9 years. Tom has a background in designing user interfaces for a number of applications. Since 2008 he has been spending all his free time making Gridspy a reality.

What they want from an investor:

• $250,000 – Enough to build a reasonable stock level, work through any product issues and reach the marketplace.
• Contacts – especially large clients, distributors or technology partners
• Experience building a sales channel, marketing a new product or launching products internationally.

Dave’s Commentary:

Tom and Stephen are very passionate about bringing their technology and experience to market in this increasingly relevant industry sector.  They appear to be very capable technically, and have put together a great looking prototype web site.  They will need cash, connections, and excellent governance advice to successfully commercialise their work, and the right “smart money” could really help them take off.

Contact details:
Tom Leys
tom@gridspy.co.nz
Mob: 021-1654-764
www.gridspy.co.nz

Note: If you plan to act on any information on this site, please be sure to read the disclaimer.

Auckland-based wireless power solutions company PowerbyProxi has secured investment to accelerate growth from local investors Movac and Evander Management <outbind://5/#_msocom_1> , sending a positive signal that high growth potential businesses are still getting funded in these changing economic times.

PowerbyProxi delivers ‘unplugged power’ – eliminating the need for a physical power cable. The technology was developed to change the way electricity is delivered in hostile industrial environments where traditional power cables and physical connectors are problematic due to moving parts and/or wet and dirty environments. The technology can also be used for consumer device applications where convenience or design demands a wireless power solution.

PowerbyProxi Executive Chairman Greg Cross says, “PowerbyProxi are pioneers in the design and development of turnkey wireless power solutions.  We’re delighted to have the backing of Movac and Evander Management as we go to market.  Their investment and expertise will be used to accelerate technology development, grow the team and build on the 2008 launch of our first commercial products in the US.”

The current cap round as well as the follow-on round were fully taken up by angel investor Movac with a track record of early stage investment success including TradeMe, and Evander Management Limited a private investment company.

David Beard a partner at Movac said, “With all of our investments we look for high growth potential, and the PowerbyProxi technology, team and global potential impressed. We’re funding a company that has a fantastic market opportunity and a really compelling sales proposition. Movac is committed to investing in early stage companies.  This investment shows that businesses can still get money in tough times if they are focused on meeting unmet needs.”

PowerbyProxi, based at the ICEHOUSE business growth centre, is founded based on leading edge research from the University of Auckland in 2007.  The company has already come to the attention of industry due to a 12 month development effort with John Deere.

PowerbyProxi recently completed the commercial launch of the Proxi-RingTM, a completely contactless slip ring which is used to transfer power across 360 degree rotating joints.  The new technology replaces mechanical slip rings which have a reputation for failure and high associated maintenance costs.

Greg Cross says, “Securing investment has allowed us to accelerate our plans for key international markets like the US and Japan.  It will also enable us to build out our research and development team who really are doing some ground breaking work in this exciting space.”