SM: Who were the VCs that you raised money from? MH: Noventi Ventures was the main investor. There were two small firms, Greenhouse Capital and Big Sky Partners. We converted the notes and raised $5 million in new cash.
SM: How much money did you raise through the angel process? MH: The first time we raised $750,000. We then did $2 million in convertible notes. After that we did a VC round.
SM: What are the requirements of a home, and how did you derive that there are 13 million homes that can handle your solution? MH: You need a lot that is half an acre or larger and at least a Class 3 wind.
SM: When did you start Mariah Power? MH: It was started in August 2005. Ken Rogers and Chris Gabrys had invented a motor that was very efficient. As we looked at the markets to determine where to use the motor, it became clear that we could not compete with the Chinese motors because their cost
Mike Hess is a serial entrepreneur, having started multiple companies since the late 1970s. He has also held senior leadership positions at Raychem and Raynet. He has a BS in mathematics and later studied design engineering at Stanford and network engineering at UC Santa Cruz. He is the CEO and a co-founder of Mariah Power,
SM: Is there a way your company could grow faster? Your product is ready, your channel is ramping well. Is capital an issue for growth? NR: It is the lengthy sales cycle. When we go into a building, we get in at the building operator level or the CFO level.
SM: Let’s look at this from a strategic business perspective. You have 110,000 buildings in the United States to which your technology applies. If the average selling price is $100,000, then you have a very big market opportunity. NR: It is enormous.
SM: Based on your technology, what is your estimate of an overall energy impact? What percentage of energy reduction could you provide? NR: If our technology were to be implemented in half of the buildings in the United States which it is capable of working on, we would take the equivalent of 145 million cars