SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
$450k Raised at $5m Valuation SaaS Platform Helps you Hit ESG and Sustainability Targets
31 Dec 2021
Chapter 1: What is BrightMerge and how does it optimize renewable energy systems?
Yeah, so four customers at a $10,000 ACV, I mean, that would put you at like $4,000 or $5,000 a month right now in revenue. Is that about right?
Yeah, that's a good ballpark.
You are listening to Conversations with Nathan Latka, where I sit down and interview the top SaaS founders, like Eric Wan from Zoom. If you'd like to subscribe, go to getlatka.com.
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He's the founder and CEO of BrightMerge, a leading data optimization platform for local renewable energy systems or microgrids. Daniel, you ready to take us to the top? Go for it. All right. Tell us more about BrightMerge. Who's paying you for this technology?
We work with energy companies, utilities, and real estate companies who are very aggressively pursuing a decarbonization program.
And ESG targets, that sort of stuff?
Yeah, and just capturing the value of renewable energy that is tremendous. It's one of the greatest economic opportunities of our age. And, you know, the economics are just so attractive now. It's not just about decarbonization and ESG. It's just super attractive.
What we do is we help people understand the real economic opportunity there so they can, you know, turbo boost the adoption of renewable energy opportunities.
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Chapter 2: Who are BrightMerge's primary customers and what do they pay?
Yep. Yeah, so four customers at $10,000 ACV. I mean, that would put you at like $4,000 or $5,000 a month right now in revenue. Is that about right? Yep. It's a good ballpark. And when did you start selling? About six months ago. So a year ago, you were at zero revenue, right? That's a good growth rate. Zero to 48 grand a year, huh?
Yeah, I mean, I think what we did was we spent a lot of time building the product before. And so there was a big waiting list, big customer interest in the product before we actually launched.
How big was the wait list?
So we've got around 50 customers waiting, ready to be onboarded. So we're probably onboard at the rate of about two a month.
And Daniel, when did you write the first line of code for the platform? Sorry? When did you write the first line of code for the platform?
So it's a pretty complex product. There's a simulation and optimization engine in the back end. So we've been doing this about two years. Yeah. And we've been funded by the US and Israeli Innovation Authority and the Department of Energy. So this is very much sort of big picture funding.
So how much was your first fundraise and what year?
We raised grant funding in 2020. We started 2019. Early 2019, we raised about $450,000. And what have you raised since? Additional $550,000. So close to a million.
Okay. So $550,000 was in 2020 or this year? This year. This year. Okay. And you'd consider that what your seed round?
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Chapter 3: How has BrightMerge's revenue evolved since its inception?
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Yeah. Yeah. Tell me more about the team today. How many folks?
So we've just grown to about eight now. We've got some data scientists, super smart algorithm developers, enterprise SaaS, really smart electrical engineering. So we have to have a really deep and integrated team of different skills.
Daniel, how many engineers total? Five. Five engineers. And what do the other four do or three do? Sales, marketing, advertising. What's your target? You're doing $4,000 or $5,000 a month today in revenue. What do you think you can hit in six months?
Well, I'd like to do next year, total an ARR of half a million dollars. There's significant growth coming up.
And how do you get there? Is it expanding the number of seats and projects on the current four customers or adding brand new customers altogether? We'll do both.
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Chapter 4: What milestones has BrightMerge achieved in fundraising?
It's currently very focused on the financials and we'll be layering on additional. Also, the reliability is becoming more and more of an issue. It's not just about carbon and economics. It's also how reliable your energy is. Think about the modern world. It's critical that you have uptime 24-7, 365. That's actually not happening even in places like California, Texas, New York.
There are hurricanes, fires, earthquakes, freezing. So it's really important for the customers to understand what is their predicted reliability of energy, and they want to make sure they have as reliable as possible. But they don't want to pay a premium, so we have to keep it optimized.
Understood, Daniel. We're rooting for you on that note. Let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
My favorite business book is Jack Welch. It's called The Winner.
Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying?
I'm a big fan of Elon Musk.
There's nothing that beats him. Number three, what's your favorite online tool for building a business?
We're using Slack. I think it's a great product to keep teams going, especially in this world where we're doing a lot of remote work.
Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night?
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