A Virgin StartUp-funded business is aiming to cut carbon emissions and save people hundreds of pounds on their energy bills through its innovative technology.
A new platform created by Resilience Energy, led by founder Loic Hares, will allow consumers to monitor renewable energy performance in real time, and trade excess energy with the National Grid – with homeowners receiving a share of the revenue.
Equipping customers with solar panels, a battery and innovative software, Resilience says they can cut electricity bills by up to 60%.
Loic spent years working for some of the country’s ‘Big Six’ energy providers, and now wants to make a difference by bringing real innovation into the industry.
He said: “As we move towards net-zero carbon, we’re going to have to rely increasingly on electricity. The grid is going to have to take the strain. We’ve looked at the issue and we’ve come up with a solution to help turn people’s homes into virtual power plants.
“We’ve analysed our performance over the first few months and we can see that we’re helping to save up to 60% on energy bills for our first customers.”
Resilience’s products came to market in spring 2019 having successfully raised £151,000 through an equity crowdfunding campaign, gaining 364 different investors. That success came after Loic participated in the Virgin StartUp CrowdBoost Accelerator programme to give him the skills and knowledge needed to run an equity-based crowdfunding campaign perfect for his start-up.
Loic said: “I’d crowdfunded before for other businesses, but CrowdBoost taught me everything I needed to know about doing it for a new business. I don’t think we’d have been able to raise as much money as we did without it.
“The biggest takeaway was about messaging: turning complex ideals into short five-second [and] 30-second pitches to really sell your business - and practicing them over and over again. As an entrepreneur, you want to be able to sell your business day-in, day-out. I think I rewrote my investor pitch 16 times throughout the course of CrowdBoost to keep making it better and better.”
Resilience also benefited from a Start Up Loan from Virgin StartUp which, combined with the money raised through crowdfunding, allowed the fledgling company to bring their products to the marketplace, with scores of customers signing up already.
Loic added: “The money has enabled us to develop our products. We had a great idea, but we’re now able to build a viable product. Our system is now working in people’s homes and it’s helping us to attract further investment. It’s helped us to grow.”
Loic believes his investors took a keen interest in Resilience’s story when choosing to invest.
“You’d have to have been living under a rock not to be aware of the climate emergency we’re faced with,” he says. “A lot of our investors are only looking to invest in companies doing something to tackle it and we hit the spot.
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