Lara Abrams Communications

On Tendril

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008

You know, if Boulder were closer to an ocean, and the West Coast, and the world of nanotech, Jon and I would probably be there. My younger brother loved his time there, and there are definitely some cool companies there.

Take, for instance, Tendril. I had the opportunity to sit down with Adrian Tuck, Tendril’s CEO, and a few members of his staff a week or so ago, to learn more about the company and the market-transformational things they’re doing. Over hot chocolate, we talked about Tendril’s Residential Energy Ecosystem, affectionately known as TREE.

Founded in 2004, Tendril this year shot from 17 employees at year’s start to the 60+ it’s at today, and there’s no sign of growth slowing for the company. With 20 million raised thus far (12 million in their B round raised), and plans to raise more later in the year, CEO Tuck is in ‘go’ mode. He’s leveraging his expertise in large scale wireless sensor and control networks to build solutions for the energy market – specifically residential energy management systems (REMS) today. The goal? To deliver a comprehensive and innovative residential energy management system (REMS) that will interactively engage consumers in energy efficiency and demand response – all in collaboration with utilities. With residential energy demand 30% of demand and growing, and with the insight into customer consumption patterns that TREE will be able to provide utilities with, the timing for Tendril couldn’t be better. We all know consumers are being pinched by high gas prices and soaring food costs, and there isn’t a one of us who doesn’t want to be able to control how much energy we use and when. And just think: if you’ve ever been one to not understand how to read your monthly energy bills, well – this could fix that problem.

Tendril’s got a whole range of products that will be made available to consumers through their utilities – ( I had a chance to play with Tendril’s in-home display, and also got a look at the company’s outlet product, Tendril Volt, which will tell consumers exactly how much it’s costing them to use various appliances by outlet): the Tendril Insight (in-home display), Tendril Transport (gateway), and Tendril Set-Point (thermostat). Tendril will also be able to recognize and support for certain third party products.

Tendril’s REMS is a platform that supports all utility programs, with the idea being that an open, extensible software platform will simplify and expedite the deployment and management of REMS. The server is designed to scale, and interfaces with utility back-office apps. Consumers will have access to real-time energy consumption and financial information through a web portal or window, which will allow for a predictive, personalized, and intuitive experience (since the company has developed an intuitive install and interface component for measuring energy consumption by appliance). In end-to-end fashion, Tendril’s Energy EcoSystem Server supports broadband and AMI meter backhaul network environments as well as having that front end connection to the consumer.

What do you have to do to install TREE? Just plug in the display and gateway to your power supplies, then take the cable that’s supplied to plug the gateway into an existing Internet router. And your Tendril devices take care of the rest, to form a home-area network. To see your handy work, you will then just logon to Tendril’s consumer portal, register your devices, and that’s it. You’re good to go. Pretty smart, I think. The bonus for utilities? They don’t have to spend the money to build more power stations, and can instead leverage Tendril’s TREE to monitor and reduce energy consumption in tims of high demand or peak pricing. And for consumers - just like you can access your cell phone bill online, and monitor your usage, as well as change your monthly spend based on usage, you’ll have access through a web-based portal to do the same sort of thing in terms of shaping your own energy consumption load with Tendril’s web interface. It’s really pretty easy sounding, if you ask me. And that’s what it’s going to take to get consumers on board. Ease of use.

Expect to see some partnerships with major appliance manufacturers and various providers of energy efficient solutions. The company’s offering their services in a SaaS model to utilities, making it easier than ever for utilities to give consumers a way to take charge of their energy consumption habits as well as influence consumer energy consumption behaviors. The company’s go live is slated for sometime in August. They’re currently doing live and piloting testing in about a thousand homes, and will be in the field with five utilities by the end of the year.

Tuck told me the company’s in active discussions with 20 odd utilities. That’s roughly 56 million homes. And the company will be making some major customer and partner announcements shortly.

Let’s home Tendril comes to a utility near us all – soon.

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Contact Lara Abrams

To contact Lara, please email her at lara@laraabrams.com or call 415 613 1704.