Four Startups Providing Smart Home and Green Home Solutions With Investment Offerings Available This Week

Smart home and green home solutions appear on the market frequently as the world tries to reduce carbon emissions and decrease plastic waste. Cleaner technologies can also present fresh opportunities for investment.

Take a look at Benzinga’s top picks for green home and smart home solutions to invest in this week through startup crowdfunding on Wefunder.

RYSE

RYSE is an Internet of Things (IoT) smart home firm that develops solutions to motorize and automate window blinds and shades easy-to-control through Google Home, Amazon Alexa and Apple HomeKit.

The company: RYSE established its operations in 2017 and has since built a robust supply chain network. Its first-generation product AXIS received the Consumer Technology Association's Mark of Excellence Award for Motorized Product of the Year in 2018.

The startup's goal is to develop the most advanced yet straightforward and low-cost solutions for motorizing existing blinds and shades so that more people can enjoy the benefits of smart shades.

RYSE focuses on four main points when developing its products: retrofit, smart home integration, affordable luxury and energy efficiency. By minimizing energy use, the startup can help improve the environment and further greener energy solutions worldwide.

Investment highlights: RYSE USA is the first and most reasonably priced retrofit solution to automate a home's existing window blinds. The company has already sold over 35,000 devices and produced over $4 million in lifetime revenue, anticipating more growth following the new V2 and SmartDrape devices launch in a few months from now.

RYSE's smart technology allows homes and buildings to passively cool and cut HVAC loads by 24% and harvest natural daylight to reduce internal illumination by 70% by automating existing window blinds.

The company has a robust patent portfolio, with five issued patents and three more pending, as well as an Amazon Court Judgement win that bars the sale of copycats. High-profile investors in RYSE include Shawn Dougherty, co-founder of mophie®, and Anthony Lacavera, founder of WIND Mobile.

Investors can join the campaign with a minimum investment of $250.

Icarus RT

Icarus RT developed a method that recycles more than half of the waste heat generated by PV systems, cooling solar panels to boost their electric efficiency during daytime and generating hot water with the excess heat.

The company: Icarus first set up Quartet, a demonstration system for prototyping and testing, at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in 2018. This pilot model demonstrated efficiency advantages and potential cost savings.

The company has two more full-sized commercial-scale prototypes installed at Palomar Community College in San Marcos, California and UCSD. In addition, Icarus plans to carry out commercial demonstration projects for a large government facility in San Diego, California and for San Diego State University, a large multi-unit residential complex in Del Mar, California, following the successful validation of these prototypes.

Investment highlights: The company's Quartet Hybrid Solar Energy technology combines the finest solar photovoltaic automation with solar hot water processes to capture twice the energy from the sun in the same area with only a modest cost increase.

The solution allows building owners to no longer be required to choose between generating electricity or hot water with their solar system — they can do both with Quartet technology. In addition, end-users benefit from improved solar energy conversion and thermal energy storage with no costly, hazardous batteries.

Hotels, apartment complexes, hospitals, companies and schools may acquire all the electricity and hot water they need with the startup’s innovative system while reducing carbon emissions by thousands of tons per year.

Thanks to its better efficiency, the Quartet Hybrid Solar Energy system can pay for itself in just three years, rather than the five to ten years that existing solar systems require. This benefit makes the technology a more economically appealing investment, which also helps global air purity by significantly decreasing fossil fuel emissions.

Investors can join the campaign with a minimum investment of $100.

Next Thing Tech

Next Thing Tech plans to reshape the global energy market by offering Next Bolt, a new battery technology people can use for several purposes.

The company: Next Thing Tech is a privately held firm that developed one of the first cheap, 100% American-made home energy storage batteries. Next Bolt will be available for just $100 per month, less than the typical monthly electricity bill in the United States.

The company's modular battery can handle any power need and is designed to be installed quickly. Next Thing Tech's team and the scientists who developed the technology already have a working battery, but a scalable solution is expected to hit the market in two years or less. The innovative battery is ideal for powering homes and businesses, interacting with the solar sector and charging electric vehicles.

Investment highlights: Next Bolt will be the only battery on the market to use this unique battery composition, thanks to an exclusive rights agreement the company filled. Even if only 1 in every 10 American houses buys a battery, the company would still earn $15.4 billion in annual revenue from U.S. homeowners alone.

Next Thing Tech's current pre-money valuation is $35 million with the forecasts given. The company is now looking to raise $4 million to speed up a new sodium battery development but also to manufacture and market the Next Bolt technology.

The needed minimum investment to join Next Thing Tech's crowdfunding campaign is $100.

SunState Laboratories

SunState Laboratories aims to disrupt the household cleanser industry through its green solution, DAZZ Cleaning Tablets.

The company: SunState Laboratories is a socially-responsible firm that aims to prioritize profits, the environment and people. The company is dedicated to creating household cleaning solutions that are innovative, cost-effective and ecologically-friendly.

SunState Labs aims to go beyond green formulations to solve the worldwide issue of plastic waste thrown into the ecosystem. After years of research, the startup has successfully designed a concentrated cleaning tablet line to revolutionize the way consumers buy and use household cleansers.

The product is effervescent tablets created from potent, naturally safe cleaning chemicals. The solution makes it possible for people to produce their own cleanser with nothing more than tap water, DAZZ tablets and the same bottle over and over.

Investment highlights: The company's DAZZ Cleaning Tablets hope to stand out from the competition by being both economical and environmentally responsible, with a refill system that keeps the bottles in use and out of landfills.

Dazz Cleaning Tablets are also fragrance-free, cruelty-free and practical. They are made with plant and mineral-based ingredients. All the company's products are U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Safer Choice Certified and have 100% United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-certified biobased content.

Dazz products are also certified Leaping Bunny cruelty-free and are third-party evaluated for strength and performance at the Toxics Use Reduction Institute (TURI) at the University of Massachusetts Lowell lab. The minimum investment required from funders by SunState Laboratories is $100.

Photo by Dan LeFebvre on Unsplash