Announcements
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FirstFuel Software Selected as “Invention” Winner in BBJ’s 2012 Best Green Practices in Cleantech and Energy Awards
04/18/2012
FirstFuel Software, the commercial building energy analytics company, has been selected as a winner of this year’s Boston Business Journal Best Green Practices in Cleantech and Energy awards in the Invention category. Now in their fifth year, the annual awards honor the most innovative, effective leaders advancing green workplaces in Greater Boston.
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FirstFuel Software to Participate in Remote Building Energy Analytics Panel at Leading Smart Grid Conference
04/02/2012
FirstFuel Software, the building energy analytics company, will share expert insight on improving commercial building energy performance and energy efficiency at Networked Grid 2012 in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Badri Raghavan, FirstFuel’s CTO, will be participating in the panel “The Grid's Edge: Empowering Consumers and Integrating Intelligent Buildings,” on April 5th at 3:00 p.m. ET.
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FirstFuel Announces Product Support for Green Button Initiative
03/22/2012
FirstFuel Software, the commercial building energy analytics company, today announced that it will provide product support for the Green Button initiative. The company will use utility interval electric data employing the Green Button standard to perform comprehensive, zero-touch energy assessments of commercial buildings, translating that solution into customer engagement and delivered savings for utilities.
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FirstFuel Raises $10 Million in Series A Financing Led by Rockport Capital and Existing Investors Nth Power and Battery Ventures
02/23/2012
Lexington, MA – FirstFuel Software, the commercial building energy analytics company, today announced the closing of a $10 million round of financing. RockPort Capital led the round and was joined by existing investors Nth Power and Battery Ventures. The investment will support FirstFuel’s rapid expansion in the utility and government markets, and will accelerate product development efforts to expand the capabilities of its Rapid Building Assessment (RBA) platform.
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FirstFuel Awarded Department of Defense Contract for FY 2012 New Installation Energy Technology Demonstrations
01/04/2012
BOSTON, MA – FirstFuel Software has been selected by the DoD's Environmental Security Technology Certification Program as one of 27 new projects to demonstrate emerging energy technologies on military installations
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Phil Giudice Joins FirstFuel Software's Board of Directors
11/24/2011
BOSTON, MA – FirstFuel Software, the building energy analytics company, today announced that Phil Giudice, the former commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) and state Undersecretary of Energy, has joined the company’s Board of Directors.
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FirstFuel Software Appoints Badri Raghavan as CTO
11/04/2011
BOSTON, MA – FirstFuel Software, the building energy analytics company, today announced that Dr. Badri Raghavan has been appointed Chief Technology Officer. Formerly with IBM Research, Dr. Raghavan has more than 15 years of technology leadership and deep business analytics experience.
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FirstFuel Software Closes $2.4M Investment from Battery Ventures and Nth Power; Launches Platform for Remote Building Energy Analysis
09/22/2011
Boston, MA – FirstFuel Software, the commercial building energy analytics company, today announced that it secured a $2.4 million initial round of financing led by Battery Ventures and Nth Power, with participation from individual investors. The company, formerly called iblogix, Inc., will use the financing to quickly scale and accelerate adoption of its Rapid Building Assessment (RBA) platform, which provides zero-touch analysis of the energy performance of commercial buildings.
In the News
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FirstFuel adopts a ‘zero touch’ approach to energy-use monitoring
05/11/2012
Barely two years after launching, FirstFuel Software’s remote energy auditing platform for commercial buildings is already in use with some of the nation’s largest utilities and government agencies, including the Department of Defense.
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Boston Business Journal announces Green Practices Winners
04/12/2012
The Boston Business Journal has announced the winners of the Best Green Practices Awards for 2012. The winners for INVENTION are: Energy Points, FirstFuel Software, XL Hybrids.
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The First Fuel is Efficiency
04/04/2012
Shah's startup, FirstFuel, finds these savings thanks to a combination of analytical software, building expertise, and so-called interval meters that utilities have begun putting in place. Along with data from the new meters, all FirstFuel needs to start an audit is a building's address.
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New Industry Commitments to Give 15 Million Households Tools to Shrink Their Energy Bills
03/22/2012
Washington, D.C. -- Responding to President Obama’s call for an “all-of-the-above” strategy to help consumers reduce their energy costs...Companies announcing today that they are developing applications or services for businesses and consumers using this industry data standard include: Belkin, Efficiency 2.0, EnergySavvy, FirstFuel, Honest Buildings, Lucid, OPower, Plotwatt, Schneider-Electric, Simple Energy, and Sunrun.
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The Green Button Goes Commercial
03/22/2012
Can Green Button, the emerging energy data standard for U.S. households, find a home in the commercial buildings sector? It looks like major grid players like Schneider Electric, Itron and Oracle, as well as startups like FirstFuel, plan to find out.
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Lexington co. perfects energy audits from afar
02/29/2012
An American company is sizing up commercial buildings as far away as Europe to see what changes would make them more energy-efficient — and its employees are doing it without ever leaving their Lexington office.
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FirstFuel Wins $10M More for Commercial Building Energy Analysis
02/27/2012
The firm looks to be on a roll and just closed a $10 million round A led by new investor Rockport Capital, which is joining existing investors Nth Power and Battery Ventures.
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FirstFuel Loads Up $10M Series A With Customers Under Its Belt
02/24/2012
FirstFuel Software Inc. may be that elusive clean-technology company that's quick to market. Founded two years ago, it is already drawing revenue from notoriously difficult customers--the federal government and utilities--and just closed on a $10 million Series A round to expand its service that remotely evaluates a building's energy improvement needs.
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FirstFuel gets $10 million in Series A financing
02/23/2012
FirstFuel Software Inc., which analyzes the energy usage in a commercial building remotely, has received $10 million in financing in a round led by RockPort Capital. The Series A round comes after a hefty $2.4 million seed round that closed last June, and will also go toward helping the company reach out to government and utility markets.
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FirstFuel Takes In $10M for Building Energy Analytics
02/23/2012
Lexington, MA-based FirstFuel Software announced today that it snapped up $10 million in Series A financing, led by Rockport Capital and joined by existing investors Nth Power and Battery Ventures. That comes atop a $2.4 million seed round the company raised last September.
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Pentagon Looks for Energy Savings
02/13/2012
In these times of tightening budgets and lingering economic uncertainty, the energy savings performance contract model appears to be enjoying growing popularity...It appears FirstFuel’s RBA, like the ESPC model, is seeing growing adoption in the federal sector.
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10 ways big data is remaking energy
01/29/2012
Here’s 10 ways that analytics and big data will start to shape the production and consumption of energy in the world...Real estate data: Startups like FirstFuel Software can use big data to make super accurate assessments about buildings and ways to reduce the energy consumption of buildings--without any extra hardware or monitoring software being installed at the building.
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Has Canada cracked the Smart Grid consumer code?
01/11/2012
Massachusetts-based FirstFuel Software says it is not in Ontario yet, but would like to be soon. The newly launched company has developed what it describes as a "zero touch" measurement system now in testing in about 50 buildings in the US.
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FirstFuel Software Selected for DoD Energy Initiative
01/05/2012
Lexington, MA-based FirstFuel Software is among a crop of experimental energy projects picked to help the Department of Defense curb its energy output across military installations, the company announced yesterday.
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12 Smart Grid Startups to Watch in 2012
01/02/2012
We brought you some predictions about the smart grid market in 2012, but what are some of the startups you should be keeping an eye on next year? You know you were about to ask me that...Here's some of the ones that I think will be really interesting to watch in 2012. They might not be the biggest players of the ones making the most money (some are), but these are companies that could be disruptive with their business models, concepts and leadership...FirstFuel Software: FirstFuel Software is able to use analytics and big data to remotely determine energy information about a commercial building, like consumption habits, and give recommendations for hot to make it run more energy efficiently.
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12 Energy Projects to Watch in 2011
12/31/2011
The U.S. Department of Defense has 300,000 buildings and an energy bill that amounts to nearly $4 billion annually...The hottest spot in the DOD's hot zone is probably the Environmental Security Technology Certification Program (ESTCP) "Installation Energy Test Bed Initiative," which is where the proverbial envelope on clean energy is getting pushed...Here is my list of the 12 most promising clean-energy projects selected by the DoD for 2012.
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In Clean Tech, Venture Capital Looks for Problem-Solvers
11/24/2011
FirstFuel Software is another company using computers to cope with climate change. It analyzes a building's electric use based on data, without visiting the building, and produces an energy-saving plan. It raised $2.4 million from Battery Ventures and Nth Power in September.
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FirstFuel's Analytics Software Looks to Help Utilities Better Spend the Billions Allocated for Energy Efficiency
11/16/2011
Utilities have a big problem," says Swapnil Shah, CEO and co-founder of Waltham, MA-based FirstFuel Software...."They have a big pile of money they have to spend to achieve certain goals," he continues. "If they don't achieve it, they get penalized by the state.
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Zero Touch Energy Audit: Will It Change the Game?
11/07/2011
What new energy efficiency technologies will change the game? I’d like to use this space on occasion to explore that question and get your feedback on companies that I profile…This week’s company is FirstFuel Software, which appears it could make the conventional energy building audit go the way of the buggy whip…FirstFuel "audits" commercial buildings from afar. No human ever needs to set foot in the building and no monitoring or measurement devices are installed on the premises, hence the audit is "zero touch."
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Is Occupy Wall St. Occupying the Wrong Street? - Environmental Expert
10/27/2011
My Dad and I have a running joke when we’re in the car together. "Look," he'll say. "Gas is cheap. It's down to $3.39." Cheap, he means, compared with the month before when it was $3.79 per gallon...The joke illustrates a good point.
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FirstFuel Software adds cleantech veteran to board--Greenbang
10/24/2011
A company that uses analytics software to help buildings improve their energy use has added a heavy-hitter in the cleantech sphere to its board of directors....FirstFuel Software's newest board member is Phil Giudice, who was previously a commissioner with the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER), as well as the state's Undersecretary of Energy.
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FirstFuel Aims to Deliver 'Zero Touch' Building Energy Audits
09/23/2011
Imagine having the energy efficiency of your building assessed without an auditor ever setting foot in the place and getting results -- along with customized recommendations on how your company can cut waste -- in a fraction of the standard turnaround time.
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FirstFuel Gets $2.4M for Remote Building Energy Analysis
09/23/2011
Commercial building energy analytics company FirstFuel Software has secured a $2.4 million initial round of financing led by Battery Ventures and Nth Power to quickly scale and accelerate adoption of its Rapid Building Assessment (RBA) platform, which provides zero-touch analysis of the energy performance of commercial buildings.
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Virtual Building Audit Spots Energy Savings
09/22/2011
Startup FirstFuel announced today it has raised $2.4 million from venture capital companies Nth Power and Battery Ventures to commercialize a software system to remotely evaluate and measure commercial building efficiency.
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A New Approach to Energy Audits
09/22/2011
Auditing and benchmarking are the first steps in any energy-efficiency building retrofit. The conventional approach is to send Joe the Auditor out to the building site with a clipboard to do a formal walk-through and then compile a thick report detailing the building’s energy profile. Not only is this approach time-intensive, hardly profitable, and difficult to scale, but it also often misses major opportunities for efficiency improvements. Innovation in the arena of energy auditing is overdue
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FirstFuel Wins $2.4M For Commercial Building Energy Analysis
09/22/2011
FirstFuel Software just closed a $2.4 million round from Battery Ventures and Nth Power for the business of analyzing the energy patterns of commercial buildings. While many building energy analysis firms have to reach out and "touch" the customer and install some type of sensors and monitoring equipment, FirstFuel Software never has to contact the customer. It's this non-intrusive, touchless process that allows the firm to scale.
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Pike Research: Data analytics multi-billion dollar utility market
08/16/2011
According to a recent report from Pike Research, the deployment of smart meters and the highly granular, real-time information they produce are stimulating the development of a new market for smart grid data analytics, estimated to generate $11.3 billion in cumulative revenue during from 2011 to 2015.
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Traditional Energy Audits Are So Yesterday
07/26/2011
For years large ESCO’s (Johnson Controls, Siemens, Honeywell, etc.) have been performing Level Three Investment Grade Audits (IGAs), which are required for MUSH/Federal performance contracts. Their audits produce a detailed energy savings spreadsheet which makes it possible for a tax-exempt entity to issue bonds which pay for the retrofits, all leveraging the ESCO’s “guarantee” for the projected savings.
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Cleantech startups N12 and iBLogix land U-Launch grants
03/03/2011
Two area clean technology startups have won grants under a new local program, U-Launch, that aims to turn university research into commercial cleantech solutions. The companies, Cambridge-based N12 Technologies and Waltham-based iBLogix, will receive the first round of grants from U-Launch. Dollar values for the awards were not disclosed.
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MassCEC Awards $1 million to Innovative Energy Efficiency Companies
10/04/2010
BOSTON – Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) Ian Bowles joined state officials and local businesses today to announce four grants totaling $1 million for companies and organizations to carry out business plans that will help customers make greater energy efficiency improvements in their homes and buildings. These grants are part of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s (MassCEC) Energy Efficiency Service Innovation grant program, which aims to supplement Massachusetts’ leading energy efficiency programs by testing new business models for delivering energy efficiency services to residential or small commercial, institutional and/or industrial energy users.