Monday, November 28, 2005

Envirotech

Investors toss money into solar-powered waste bin business

By Efrain Viscarolasaga

Developing, selling and deploying prototypes of its BigBelly solar powered trash compactor proved to be the key to unlocking $1.1 million in angel and venture funding for Westborough's Seahorse Power Company Inc.

"For the first time ever, we have a war chest," said James Poss, founder and chief executive officer of Seahorse Power and inventor of the BigBelly. "Before this it was just hand-to-mouth. We never really had the means to strategically plan for the future. Our plan is to push forward with the technology, based on excellent feedback we have gotten from our customers."

The new funding was raised from several angel entities in the area, including the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund and Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates. Dan Goldman, chief financial officer of New Energy Capital also contributed, but as an individual investor and not from the firm's fund.

The new funding will also be used to bring the company to the next phase of manufacturing, according to William Osborn of the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund.

Poss, a self-styled inventor of environmental technologies, was working at Solectria Corp., providing drive systems for electric, hybrid-electric, solar-electric and fuel cell vehicles, when he developed the idea for the BigBelly. In fact, the solar-powered trash compactor was one of three new ideas he was working on at the time. A scientific vote pushed BigBelly to the front of the line.

"My mom and my wife kept saying 'that's your best idea. That's the most marketable,'" he said.

After officially founding the company in April 2003, Poss pitched the idea to every lead he could think of. Eventually he pitched the Vail ski resort in Colorado, whose staff typically drove up to two hours in a Snowcat to collect trash in remote parts of the resort several times a week, said Poss.

Vail executives took to the idea of reducing fuel consumption, man-hours and stress on its vehicles and bought several units. They paid up front, and Seahorse Power was on its way.

The company's early success while bootstrapped was one quality that attracted some of the angel investors.

"The progress they have made with very little funding thus far is amazing," said Goldman.

The company's business model is one that may not require large amounts of funding, and this first round of angel funding could be the only round the company raises, though it is not guaranteed, said Goldman.

"This is a company that, with this amount of money and the right amount of sales, could go cash positive, and they may not need another round," he said. "On the other side, things don't always go as planned."

The solar-powered compactor units, which retail for approximately $4,700, can reduce trash waste to about four times their original volume, reducing the frequency of pickup and the possibility of overflow. The company is also looking at increasing the intelligence of the units, possibly adding a network element, which would allow remote monitoring, according to Poss.

Today, the company has units in Boston; Orlando, Fla.; Queens, N.Y.; and Vail, as well as on campus at Babson College, all of which are paying customers.