Saving energy is an important and simple way to ease the burden on the planet. What’s not so simple is to find out where you can save energy. Enter Seluxit from Denmark, one of the 18 cleantech start-ups to present at the Nordic Venture 50 Forum on October 19th in Copenhagen.
Seluxit, which was established in 2006 by Morten Frederiksen and Daniel Lux, develops and markets software and hardware solutions to monitor the energy consumption of buildings. The company is already marketing two different sensors which use the Z-Wave wireless standard, offer two different Gateways and are currently developing a Mobile Phone programme which will run on all mobiles that support GPRS and Java. The mobile phone app will allow you to monitor and control your house on the go, which could be useful if you’re traveling and aren’t sure if you switched off the heating system.
You can use Seluxit metering solutions to measure electricity, gas and water consumption; and because they’re wireless they’re easy to install and to move around. The sensors communicate to a viaSENS home controller, from where you can see and control the energy. You can also install a software on your PC (Windows; Mac and Linux coming soon) from where you can see your house’s energy usage at a glance.
Investors in the company are Lux and Frederiksen themselves, who have invested 320.000€ in the company, at equal shares. Currently they are looking for additional VC funds in order to accelerate the growth and raise awareness about the products. Seluxit had a turnover of 191.000€ in 2008 and are expecting a turnover of around 340.000€ for 2009, that’s close to 80 per cent growth – Good numbers for a company which has only four employees.
The company’s current clients include governments, power utility companies and other companies which develop Z-Wave equipment. Previous clients, which have used Seluxit’s consultancy services, have become partners and are now selling Seluxit products next to their own. Lux told me that they have also been in contact with Telcos as the remote surveillance and control of homes is interesting for them and suits their business model.
I find the Seluxit products very fascinating. The ability to check and control my house’s energy via my cellphone is brilliant: How often did you leave for holidays and wasn’t sure if you switched off the heating? Now a quick check with the phone is enough, and a click and its off in case you left it on. Also learning where your house is wasting energy is the first step towards improving energy efficiency. With a wide variety of income possibilities – from the products themselves over consultancy services to remote surveillance – I think they’re safe in case one would fail; and 80% growth in turnover for a company which is three years old and does business with the consumer is excellent.
