Companies to Watch: Five NYC Founders Shaping a Sustainable Future

Climate change is one of our greatest challenges, and there’s no shortage of ideas and momentum to meaningfully address it. As Pres. Biden’s first major international summit promises major new climate commitments, New York is doing its part with at least 20 statewide energy infrastructure projects set to be completed this year. NYC is fast tracking the transition to a fully electric school bus fleet, as well as the return of curbside composting!

And as always, New York’s tech sector is right in the middle of the conversation. Hundreds of private sector leaders have signed onto a pledge to cut down carbon use, and a class of exciting cleantech and greentech startups is becoming a burgeoning part of the NYC tech ecosystem.

This Earth Day, we are celebrating five of those companies — founders who are building tools that prove when technology is built with sustainability in mind, both business and the planet benefit.

RADIATOR LABS

What does your company do?
Radiator Labs founder and CEO Marshall Cox: Radiator Labs is an energy management and electrification platform for the world’s legacy buildings.

Where did the idea for Radiator Labs come from? Were you living in an overheated NYC apartment?
MC: I lived in a horrible steam-heated apartment during graduate school at Columbia University. My twin brother came to live with me for a few months (he was in a Broadway show for a while), and he complained incessantly about the heating issues. I built the first system to shut him up.

Are steam-heated buildings — with those old radiators — still the norm in NYC? Exactly how inefficient is that infrastructure, and what tools is Radiator Labs building to counteract that?
MC: About 75 percent of NYC is heated by steam heat — and it’s not going away any time soon. About 30 percent of the heat produced by these buildings is wasted, depending on how overheated the building, due to heat distribution problems (i.e., overheating the majority of the building to minimally heat the coldest apartments). Our system balances this distribution by stopping heat from getting to those hotter rooms once they’re comfortable. We completely eliminate that 30 percent waste.

Right, so many of the complaints from residents in apartments with radiators is that they have no control over when it turns on and off. Is that something the Cozy, your smart radiator cover, is correcting for?
MC: Absolutely — in addition to eliminating overheating, all of our systems have thermostatic control, including programming. People with Cozys can control their temperatures by adjusting settings on the cover itself, or they can dial in whatever temperatures they prefer through our mobile app.

With so many people working from home this year — spending all their time in their apartments as both a living space and an office space — has interest in climate control picked up? Has your business strategy evolved to respond to this “new normal” people are living through?
MC: It has, and we are growing substantially this year as a result. But I would argue that the real driver for our growth has been the fact that we can save energy and money for the building. Comfort is a great bonus, but solutions like this have to be cost effective to appeal to customers first.

If you got to set the agenda for the next NYC Department of Buildings meeting, what would be at the top of it?
MC: If we could set agendas for stakeholders in NYC (not necessarily just the DOB), we’d want them to discuss the merits of Hybrid Electrification for rapid buildings decarbonization. Hybrid Electrification is the idea that you can use lower cost, commodity heat pumps to provide electric space heating when it’s warmer out, and a backup carbon-based heating system when it’s very cold. We have something in the works that does this, for very low cost.

Is that idea what’s on the horizon for Radiator Labs in 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
MC: Yes, “Hybrid Electrification” is our most exciting new development. This idea is to pair a low-cost, window heat pump, with our standard Radiator Labs Cozy. The combination of these two allows us to decarbonize radiator-heated buildings by 80 percent, for 20 percent of the cost of standard full electrification solutions. We’re demonstrating this winter 2021-22, and will be offering it commercially in Q3 2022.

Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: Where do you get your favorite bagel?
MC: That’s a sore subject for someone who just moved out of Brooklyn.

What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
MC: For some reason, in Manhattan, I often end up at an Au Bon Pain, though I know that’s not very impressive. From our offices in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we frequent Brooklyn Roasting Company.

What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
MC: Multiple screens and Google chat.

What’s one new thing your team is doing to stay connected while everyone works from afar?
MC: We use Google chat a ton, as well as Hangouts whenever possible. A lot of our people spend their time in the field, so periodic updates and questions work best for us.

What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
MC: I think we’re all going to be OK with remote work as a regular thing.

DOROTHY

What does your company do?
Dorothy co-founder and CEO Arianna Armelli: Dorothy offers cash advancements to bridge the cash gap for individuals and small business owners who go through unexpected events. Unlike traditional loan options, Dorothy uses an innovative underwriting methodology to preemptively assess your properties risk and recovery cost, allowing us to offer you the right amount to bridge the gap while you wait for your insurance claim or federal aid. 

You grew up in the Bronx and were living there when Hurricane Sandy hit the city in 2012. Was that the first catalyzing force behind the idea for Dorothy?
AA: Absolutely, most of the homes in my neighborhood lost power or had window damage, and the majority of City Islands’ favorite restaurants were completely destroyed. About a month after, I went to the Rockaways out in Queens with a few friends to help families with debris removal. We pulled drywall and soaked insulation off the walls and moved damaged furniture onto the sidewalk. I remember feeling an immense sense of gratitude from these people, like we were the first to offer a hand. Out of pure curiosity, I asked, “haven't you guys received other help, doesn't your insurance cover this?” and all of them said, “we’re still waiting to hear back.” That was already over a month after a catastrophic storm in New York. This is when I first realized the magnitude of the problem — that we weren't just dealing with a climate issue or an insurance issue — there was a massive recovery financing issue. 

We’re now approaching a decade since that catastrophe, and of course, the country has seen several more natural disasters since then. Are flooding and other climate challenges getting more frequent — or more severe? How has Dorothy’s product evolved to account for those trends?
AA: We are seeing an increase in storm frequency as well as severity. Unfortunately, from the coverage point of view, what that means is that there is going to be more pull out from the private insurance market. As these events continue to happen, insurers will deem certain areas “uninsurable,” which means that there is going to be an increase in pressure on the federal market to continue to offer federally backed insurance and recovery aid. Dorothy began as a data product focused on providing information to companies and consumers about risk, but we found that consumers needed more than information — they needed products backed by information — so we’ve since evolved into a financial product focused on filling recovery gaps. 

You’ve said your tools can map risk more accurately than FEMA. What mix of technologies are you building to do that?
AA: We’ve combined hundreds of data sets, satellite imagery, and remote sensing  to develop a technology that identifies likelihood of risk and estimated recovery cost at the property level.   

Has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the company’s roadmap for you? Plenty of experts are pointing to the “dual crisis” of the pandemic and climate change — has that influenced Dorothy’s growth strategy?
AA: For sure, we originally wanted to build a business model that focused on revenue based growth, not venture capital. However, our product began taking shape in April 2020, and given the uncertainty of the market during that time, we quickly shifted strategies and raised our first venture round of capital. Looking back, we made the right decision — most of our corporate clients delayed our deals and we wouldn't have been able to fund the company past July. The timing also worked out because it allowed us to really analyze the market and the problem, and then reinvent our product into a more appropriate solution for consumers. We’re excited about all of the traction we have made so far, and the milestones we have coming up. I’m mostly proud of our team for fighting through this critical year, trusting me, and building such a unique product during what became a pivotal time in history. 

If I’m preparing to become a new property owner, are there risk variables that don’t typically come up that I should be keeping in mind?
AA: I think risk variables like frequency or types of regional disaster should be incorporated into every real estate searching platform, especially for the next generation of much more tech-enabled consumers. We’ve moved into an era where every area you can choose to live has some exposure to risk. We should know that upfront in order to take the necessary steps to prepare and protect our properties. Moving forward, I would argue that property construction is probably the second most important risk factor to consider — specifically, how resilient the properties materials and construction type are against certain types of risks. The way a property is built will also influence your insurance premiums and recovery cost, should you experience a disaster event.  

NYC and several other cities are working on coastal resiliency plans. What’s the best public policy idea you’ve heard from government leaders when it comes to disaster preparedness?
AA: I spent ten years in the architecture and urban planning industry, so I tend to lean towards resiliency plans that are infrastructure and design-oriented. Policies that integrate shoreline revitalization strategies and public space are successful because they simultaneously enable recreational space and shoreline buffers against flooding. NYC is making strides towards these types of adoptions, and I hope we continue to look at cities in Denmark, as well as Rotterdam, for inspiration on innovative ways to design for resiliency. 

What’s on the horizon for 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
AA: COVID forced us to reconsider our commercialization strategy. We originally planned to go to market with a disaster insurance product, but we quickly realized that in the instance of massive “unexpected” events, insurance is an unreliable source of financing. During disaster, families need cash to pay for services to recover immediately — they need to get back into their homes. During this pandemic, small businesses needed to maintain payroll and cash flow while waiting for government aid, which if you recall, took several months to access. 

Our team took a massive step back from our roadmap and asked, are we thinking about the solution to this problem in the wrong way? We were — in the case of any unexpected event, individuals and businesses need access to cash now, not in several months. So we developed an underwriting strategy that allows us to offer gap recovery loans for exactly when you need them. We’ll finance the upfront cost of recovery while the big guys take their time, and we’ll even help file your insurance claim.

Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
AA: Easy, John & Joe’s Pizzeria on Lydig Ave. in the Bronx.

Where do you get your favorite bagel?
AA: My mom’s kitchen.

What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
AA: At this time of year? A walk and talk in Central Park is my go-to meeting spot. 

What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
AA: Take a break in the middle of the day for a long walk or bike ride. 

What’s one new thing your team is doing to stay connected while everyone works from afar?
AA: We have a #petparty slack channel to share pics of our pets demanding attention while we work from home. 

What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
AA: You can support a whole engineer's salary for what you would normally pay in monthly office rent. I think we’ll stay remote for a bit longer.

ENERTIV

What does your company do?
Enertiv co-founder and CEO Connell McGill: Enertiv is a connected SaaS platform that brings together modern software tools to digitize operations and provide real-time visibility into the performance of critical infrastructure for commercial real estate portfolios. With Enertiv, owners and operators can ensure that on-site teams are operating buildings at peak performance while gaining unprecedented transparency into maintenance, energy efficiency, capital planning, tenant billing, the indoor environment, and more. 

Why did you found your company in NYC?
CM: Enertiv is a real estate technology company. There is no better place in the world to get to know the biggest and most sophisticated commercial operators than New York City. That’s on top of the other reasons that companies start here — the talent, the energy, and the support from  local and state government.

More than a year ago now, midtown Manhattan and other office hubs went totally dark, and they’ve been slow to trickle back to life so far. What’s it been like navigating that — working with commercial real estate partners through a pandemic?
CM: Our first order of business was to help our clients through the difficulty of the first few weeks. Luckily, we were able to use our data to help them determine which tenants had vacated (and left their equipment running), how to adjust their HVAC to match the new normal, and at least gain some new efficiencies from the reduced occupancy. We also helped them keep track of the myriad of new processes recommended by the CDC.

Property managers are, understandably, distracted with safety protocols, but when a “return to office” is happening more fully, how can they make sure sustainability goals aren’t left behind? What should buildings be considering in their reopening plans?
CM: We are helping commercial real estate owner-operators on numerous fronts when it comes to their sustainability goals. This includes centralizing utility bills and sustainability metrics in one place to streamline disclosure and reporting requirements, as well as digitizing tenant submetering and billing, which can produce behavior changes in tenants who generally consume 70 percent of a building’s energy. We’re also providing equipment monitoring to use real-time data and powerful insights to identify optimizations, and ensuring proper maintenance which can reduce utility bills by 10 to 20 percent.

Of course, many businesses — real estate managers and their tenants alike — took an economic hit due to the pandemic. But Enertiv isn’t just helping buildings be energy efficient; it’s also saving them money. How so?
CM: Energy efficiency saves money, that’s true. But that is just one of the value streams that the Enertiv Platform delivers. To start, maintenance and repairs is often a larger share of operating expenses than energy; our platform uses modern software as well as predictive analytics to significantly increase the amount of low-cost preventative maintenance and decrease the number of expensive repairs. Doing so not only saves direct operating expenses, but it also extends equipment lifetime, thus avoiding costly replacements and other capital investments. Finally, because Enertiv is a comprehensive platform for operations, there’s usually an immediate payback just by replacing the various point solutions that owners are currently using today. 

Can proptech play a bigger role in advancing climate and sustainability? What digital tools do you wish more real estate operators knew about?
CM: In recent months, the proptech community has really stepped up to the plate in aggressively advancing climate and sustainability goals. The opportunities for digitization go up and down the organization, from specific energy efficiency insights delivered to on-site operators in the field to portfolio-level dashboards to get transparency into performance without spending hours and hours collecting data. 

What’s on the horizon for Enertiv in 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
CM: We are in growth mode, so we’re focused on executing on our portfolio rollouts with existing clients. We also plan to add functionality to our Energy & ESG and our Asset Management modules.

Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
CM: Di Fara Pizza.

Where do you get your favorite bagel?
CM: La Bagel Delight in Park Slope

What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
CM: The Ace Hotel is always great.

What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
CM: Using the phone!

What’s one new thing your team is doing to stay connected while everyone works from afar?
CM: We have a video conference line always open called the Enertiv Lounge that people pop into while they’re eating lunch or whatever to chat with colleagues outside of work meetings.

What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
CM: Focus blocks — working remote lends itself to turning off email and Slack and being head down on something.

DANDELION

What does your company do?
Dandelion co-founder and president Kathy Hannun: Dandelion Energy is an energy innovation company working to electrify home heating. We create and install geothermal heat pumps to replace fossil-fueled furnaces and boilers. Since spinning out of Google X in 2017, we’ve grown into an organization of over 100 employees and have become the largest residential geothermal heat pump installation company in the US. Our carbon impact to date is the equivalent to taking over 25,000 cars off the road, and that impact is accelerating with our growth! 

Let’s start at the beginning — conceiving the idea for Dandelion at X, Alphabet’s innovation lab. What did incubating the company at a place like X provide that you wouldn’t have had founding the company independently from the start?
KH: So many things! X has such abundant resources, which is really the opposite experience of a typical small startup. We had true start up experience too (of so many things to do, only a few people, and no money) once we left. At X, we got to work with world class engineers to help the team evaluate different options for installing ground loops and various heat pump technologies. We worked with X’s business development team to survey the market for clean heat to figure out where the best markets were located to get started (New York!) and we also had a lot of supporting roles in legal, finance, and compliance that we didn’t have once we left.

Our start at X gave us a big advantage in the sense that we were able to figure out our technical path without the typical financial pressures a startup faces. We also had the opportunity to explore ideas and evaluate them without as much time pressure.

When most people think of heating or cooling their homes, they think of pretty traditional HVAC systems — or even radiators and window units. What technologies make a geothermal system different? Why is it better?
KH: Geothermal describes an energy source for heating. Some people burn fuel oil, some propane, and some natural gas. These are the most common fuel sources used in the Northeast. Geothermal is an alternative to these fuels, as it allows homeowners to heat their houses using renewable thermal energy sourced from the ground. 

What’s the collective impact? Have enough homes in New York made the transition to geothermal that you’ve already been able to track encouraging climate trends?
KH: To date, the sum total of Dandelion's installed heat pumps will offset over 150,000 tons of CO2 over the next 25 years. 

Just a couple of months before COVID-19 hit in New York, you raised a $12MM Series A-1 round, and about two months ago, raised another $35MM in a Series B. Did the pandemic upend your plans for those investments at all? What’s it been like building your business throughout the last year?
KH: In Q2 2020, as COVID was hitting New Yotk hard, Gov. Cuomo stopped all but essential business activities in the state. Because Dandelion was a 100 percent New York-based company at that time, that meant we, like many businesses, had to stop all revenue generating activities for an unknown period of time. We were forced to furlough and lay off employees and reduce our headcount to a skeleton crew. Given what happened, we were so grateful to have raised our A-1 when we did, because it provided more of a cushion to weather the storm than we would have otherwise had.

Luckily we were able to get back to work in the summer, and we ended 2020 with more employees, customers, and installations happening than we’d started the year with. We transitioned to a fully virtual sales process, which has been better for customers and for Dandelion, and many people are moving out of cities to more rural areas and looking for better options to heat and cool their homes. 2020 ended well for us, but it was a rocky journey!

If you were serving as New York’s chief climate adviser for the day, what would be at the top of your agenda
KH: My co-founder James and I were living in California when we decided to start Dandelion, but when we looked at the map to figure out the best place to start a geothermal heat pump company, New York stood out because of its climate and the great incentives that were being offered. So we moved and built Dandelion here, converting fuel-heated homes to geothermal and hiring New Yorkers. If I were serving as New York’s chief climate advisor, I would advocate for additional incentives like these, to attract entrepreneurs and companies to the state to solve New York’s biggest climate issues and create jobs and opportunities for New Yorkers in the process.

What’s on the horizon for Dandelion in 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
KH: We are doubling down on our heat pump innovation efforts in 2021. We are pursuing some new technology to make heat pumps easier and less expensive to retrofit into homes with boilers and furnaces. We are also focusing on expanding the business to new geographies and new construction.

Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
KH: One of the things I love about New York is you can get an amazing pizza slice pretty much wherever you happen to be. I never settled on a favorite place, but I always love just walking into a new place.

Where do you get your favorite bagel?
KH: Smith Street Bagels!

What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
KH: I hardly remember in-person meetings! I’ll be honest, lunch for me is typically a pretty haphazard, “what’s easiest and closest” affair, versus an opportunity to enjoy the best of what New York has to offer.

What’s your favorite remote work office hack?
KH: The slightly blurred background — it makes everything look so professional.

What’s one new thing your team is doing to stay connected while everyone works from afar?
KH: We instituted a daily standup for my team when everyone shifted to remote work. I see them so much more now than I did before! But that said, I do miss the chance encounters and small talk that comes with in-person.

What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
KH: We’ve started hiring people all over the country. Letting people live where they want, provided their job at the company allows for it, has been a good change. I appreciate the pandemic has made work more flexible in some ways, for those jobs based at a desk, and hopefully this will make it easier for people to integrate their work lives and their personal lives.

ARBOL

What does your company do?
Arbol founder and CEO Siddhartha Jha: Arbol is a coverage platform providing businesses of any size and location the ability to cover external risks such as unexpected weather using objective data. Our goal is to create a simple experience that gets them paid automatically when data hits certain preset triggers. Our core mandate is to make coverage simple and accessible for the businesses and individuals that we work with. Because our contracts settle automatically, the client can protect their business and get a speedy payout without the need to ever file claims paperwork or dispute the terms of their policy. We aim to remove the delays, disputes, and occasional instances of fraud that are seen all too often with traditional insurers and create programs that establish a sense of ease and transparency for our users. 

Why did you found your company in NYC?
SJ: New York City is a great place to live, work, and start a business. While much of our team now works virtually and our products can be deployed globally, NYC was a natural home base for Arbol because it is the shared home of all of our founders!

We’re (rightfully) hearing a lot about all the environmental damage caused by climate change, but it can also spur significant economic damage too. Have you been able to quantify exactly how much climate disasters cost?
SJ: Global climate disasters result in hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Many of the businesses and individuals that are impacted by climate risk and weather disaster, unfortunately, don’t have adequate coverage or insurance at the moment. In 2019,  there were over 400 natural catastrophe events that resulted in nearly $232 billion in economic damages globally. Only $71 billion of these damages were covered by insurance programs. It is estimated that nearly $1 trillion dollars of crops that are exposed to weather risk around the world are uninsured. As climate risk becomes a greater point of concern for businesses and individuals, the need for proactive adaptation and resilience programs that can help businesses protect vulnerable revenues will only increase. 

So you’re providing coverage against that risk. What types of businesses are you protecting, and how do your tools work with them to predict the risk levels relevant to them?
SJ: We currently have programs available for businesses in the agriculture, energy, maritime, and hospitality industries. These programs can be customized and tailored based upon the specific category of risk that the businesses that we work with face, as well as other important factors such as location. 

Arbol structures its contracts using historical weather and climate datasets that are objective and tamper-proof. So for example, if a farmer were looking to protect their crops against excess rainfall, there are publicly available datasets going back many years that show what level of precipitation the area they operate in normally receives. We can use that data to structure a contract that pays the farmer if cumulative precipitation is above the trigger level they select during their coverage period. This allows the farmer to protect their crop yields against a common form of weather risk that many agribusinesses deal with. Arbol’s proprietary pricing platform, which can be accessed directly through our website, allows clients to customize a coverage program directly in just a matter of minutes. The platform will then generate an instant premium for them and show them a breakdown of historical precipitation and payouts. 

We provide coverage across other sectors, as well. For example, travel and leisure customers can get paid if their vacation dates were mostly rained out and ski resorts can get paid if there’s too little snowfall in a given season.

Earlier this month, you raised a $3.5MM seed for dClimate, a new decentralized network for climate data. Where are consumers getting most of their data now, and how is a decentralized platform going to help?
SJ: Global climate data is a massive market that at the current moment, is highly fragmented and difficult to navigate, even some of the most gifted data and climate scientists. The market is currently serviced by a combination of government and private sector data providers, but lacks much needed transparency or standardization, which leaves huge gaps in data forecast availability. And as weather patterns shift and climate related disasters become more frequent and intense, with more businesses, individuals, and governments exposed to these risks each and every year, the demand for reliable and easily interpretable climate forecasts will only continue to grow. 

dClimate is the culmination of three years of work by Arbol to release our decentralized infrastructure of secure and tamper-proof climate and weather datasets as a standalone network. By creating a platform where data providers can house and monetize their work product, and where data consumers can easily shop for the data their organizations need, we will be able to incentivize greater openness and innovation in a market that badly needs it.

If an average New Yorker had access to all of your data, what would they be most surprised to learn?
SJ: I think they would be surprised to know how much information about our planet and its complex ecosystems is available. Some of these datasets date back hundreds of years. It’s very interesting just how much information is available, and dClimate aims to be the premier platform where people can go to access information about our Earth’s critically important climate record. 

What’s on the horizon for Arbol in 2021? Are there any projects you plan to prioritize, either because COVID-19 put them on the backburner or moved them to the frontburner?
SJ: Our platform went live in March of last year. We started out catering mostly to agriculture businesses, but have now expanded our offerings to include programs for energy, maritime, and hospitality businesses. We finished our Series A financing round for Arbol around Christmas of last year and have since focused on growing our team and new partnerships and programs for businesses and individuals that are exposed to weather risk.

Okay, some rapid fire questions. First: where do you get your favorite pizza slice?
SJ: Rubirosa.

Where do you get your favorite bagel?
SJ: Ess-a-Bagel. 

What’s the best place in New York for a coffee or lunch meeting (remember in-person meetings)?
SJ: Dos Toros is always a great lunch option!

What's one norm that was new to your team during the pandemic that you're definitely going to keep post-pandemic?
SJ: Most of our team already worked remotely prior to the pandemic, so video and audio chats were very much a part of our infrastructure and will continue to be moving forward. Arbol has always sought to find talented people regardless of where they are in the country, which means we have people working with each other all over the country at any given time.