Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund announced this week the list of environment-focused groups that have been awarded an amount of close to $443 million (in total) to help with their work. BlocPower, an energy efficiency tech start-up with a focus on building construction in urban areas has won an amount of $5.5 million from the fund.
BlocPower has so far completed at least 1,000 green energy projects in the New York area. It makes use of its licensed software for leasing, analysis, project management and monitoring of urban clean energy projects. The company’s customers are saving between 20% and 40% on their energy bills every year. It plans to use the Bezos grant to add about 125 million buildings and more cities to its BlocMaps software database.
The company is based in Brooklyn, and launched a WiFi service this year which gives low-income areas free internet and also gives the energy-saving company a glimpse at local energy usage as well as the potential to bring energy-saving options.
According to Andrew Steer, the President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, the goal of the fund is to back agents of change who are facing the challenges that this pivotal decade brings. In a statement announcing this week’s grants, Steer also said that the grants are giving room to push climate justice further and protect nature, two areas that require attention and action.
Lauren Sanchez, the Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund stated the plight of disadvantaged communities, saying that they have taken the brunt of environmental damage for a long time, and that they are important players in providing necessary solutions.
Founder and CEO of BlocPower, Donnel Baird said in an interview that commercial buildings were becoming increasingly interested in cutting costs and looking into energy efficiency. Baird estimates that 100 million buildings in the United States waste over $100 billion a year on fossil fuels, going further to say that there are significant savings that can be introduced to conserve energy.
BlocPower has previously raised $50 million, and is supported by some of the top investors in the world, including Kapor Capital (one of the early Uber investors), Twitter, AirBnB, Lyft, and Andressen Horowitz (an early Facebook investor).