iSelect Adds New Portfolio Company: Bractlet

Bractlet – The Cutting Edge of Energy Insight

Alec Manfre, CEO and Co-Founder
Matthew Lynch, CPO and Co-Founder
Brian Smith, CTO and Co-Founder

Talk about your “movers and shakers.” The three founders of Bractlet know a thing or two about moving and shaking up the commercial energy savings market. With the single goal of developing a better way to analyze and consume energy more efficiently, Alec, Matt and Brian started Bractlet by moving from Georgia, to Santiago, Chile, back to Atlanta, then to a vibrant new office in Austin, Texas.

“One thing our team is most proud of is that we are always open to feedback and ready to move in the direction that has the highest probability of success. We’ve shown that over and over again. We were able to pivot a number of times to get to where we are today.” – Matt

Today, Bractlet is working with some of the largest Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) in the country to forecast and verify savings for energy efficiency projects in large commercial buildings. Typically, when commercial building owners consider purchasing a new piece of equipment, such as a new air conditioning system, they need to be able to calculate the return on investment correctly. Many building owners contract with ESCOs who determine ROI and offer a performance guarantee. The problem is that the amount of valuable data ESCOs are currently receiving from a building is extremely limited. Their main source of data is from monthly utility statements which don’t provide any insight as to what is happening in the building and among all of the energy consuming systems.

“We have a solution that is light years ahead of what traditional Energy Services Companies can provide and so we create a lot of value for them.” – Brian

Bractlet’s hardware monitors electricity at the equipment level. That data is then sent to a second device called the Bractlet Gateway which transmits the information to cloud servers via cellular connection. It’s important to note that the Bractlet Gateway also interacts with existing building automation systems to gather even more data about machines operating inside the facility. “There are very few companies that can actually do both of these things. This is a big differentiator of our business. If we just stopped there we would be doing well. But we take it a step further.” – Alec

Bractlet has the capability to provide analytics to learn how each piece of equipment uses electricity.

“We can tell a building owner that if it’s 90 degrees out with 80% humidity and a certain building occupancy level precisely how much energy that air conditioning is using. One of the ESCOs we are working with was about 30 – 35% off of actual on site consumption. Because of our cutting edge analytics, we were within + or – 3% of the actual energy load.” – Brian

Securing contracts with ESCOs like Johnson Controls has been a huge win for the Bractlet team. Johnson Controls spent an extensive amount of time vetting Bractlet’s technology, team, and business model before deciding to green light a project. In tandem with working with ESCOs, Bractlet is working with direct customers as well. They have contracts in two facilities within one of the largest hospital groups in the state of Texas.

“What they see is that our process, our methodology and what we deliver is quite a bit ahead of what they can offer today. Next we are going into a building in downtown Chicago. They would not have given us the time of day if they didn’t think that our technology was unique.” – Alec

Consideration

With 2021 well underway and with public markets still strong, we think it is an important time to highlight some of the key private market, venture investment themes that iSelect fund has identified for the year. We believe technologies transforming the Agriculture, Food and Wellness markets will flourish, with a focus on four areas: technologies that enable better food choices to drive better health outcomes, technologies that drive better, more profitable farm operations, technologies that drive the Consumerization of Healthcare, and biome-based treatment technologies. At iSelect, we invest for impact AND performance. We offer qualified investors access to emerging growth companies through our national venture capital strategy. Our unique structure allows our investors to continue to invest in these companies as they develop.

Timing

Why is now the right time for venture? The answer is that now is not explicitly the right time. Venture is something we need in our economy at all times. Now is not better than any other particular time. The question is, why ever stop? When we look at the challenges we’re facing in food and healthcare the reality is there is someone, somewhere who has an insight about how to build a product that will solve those problems. And if they put the right resources to it, they will succeed. As long as we need new technology to make life better or make our lives more enjoyable, we need venture capital to help fuel those entrepreneurs.

What is iSelect as a product?

iSelect is a very unique product, but when you break it into its parts it’s fairly easy to understand. On the front end we’re a traditional venture capital fund. We have a diligence process. We have an investment process. We have categories of industries where we have focus and real expertise, and we invest in companies in those areas that meet requirements for the fund. On the back end we’re unique in that we don’t raise a large amount of capital at one time and deploy it over the life of our fund. Each deal that we bring onto the fund, our investors have to prove and determine to invest in that deal. We have to constantly prove our diligence standards. It’s accessible, transparent and easy for investors to come in and see our comprehensive process.

What is the ideal iSelect company?

We are looking for founders that are passionate and we want the problem they’re trying to solve to be big, real, and painful. We want the solution to be revolutionary and we want our capital to be able to help them solve that problem. We want to know that they have customers involved and that the solution they’ve come up with actually meets those customers’ and market needs. And we want the team to be capital efficient with the money they’re spending.

What does the ideal iSelect company look like?

We’re looking for a company that has an opportunity to have a 10x return to our investment or greater in a period of three to seven years. What excites us at iSelect are companies that are solving big problems. We want companies that are going to be the Monsantos of the future. Not just in the size and the scope, but the impact they have on people’s lives. We want to create positive impacts on people’s lives, so we invest in areas like agricultural production and areas like producing healthy foods for our kids. They are problems that impact real people’s lives on a daily basis. That’s what we’re trying to do at iSelect. We’re trying to solve the big problems out there. Find ways to bring capital to the entrepreneurs who are the real heroes out there getting up every morning, beating away at these things that are problems that you and me and everyone else faces in their everyday lives.

What is iSelect?

iSelect is a venture capital firm. What that means is we look at hundreds and hundreds of different companies and we apply tough diligence standards to each of them, looking at whether the team has a good plan for growing the business, whether the team is qualified and credible, and more. We do that to resolve the few who provide the best opportunities for investors. And then iSelect takes that smaller set of investments and goes to investors who are interested in venture capital and provides a way for them to invest in these companies, either individually or all at once. We co-invest alongside other venture capitalists. We source transactions through to an exit where the company would become public or get bought. And we manage that whole investment process on behalf of our investors.