Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Solar trash compactor firm BigBelly raises $3.2M

By Mass High Tech staff

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The makers of a solar-powered trash compactor, which officially changed their company name from Seahorse Power Company Inc. to BigBelly Solar Inc. on Tuesday, have raised $3.2 million in equity, as noted in a regulatory filing and confirmed by BigBelly vice president Richard Kennelly.

The company has been doing business as BigBelly since 2007, Kennelly said, so the name change just makes official the way the company was operating for the last two years.

The $3.2 million funding, which was backed by new investors who Kennelly would not disclose, supports BigBelly’s working capital and expansion of its product line. The BigBelly solar-powered compactor is designed to be a self-powered receptacle that increases trash capacity and reduces the number of trash collection trips. The units retail for under $4,000 and have a five-to-one ratio of typical trash pickups compared to BigBelly collections.

Kennelly said the funding will also be used to support the company’s new agreement with the city of Philadelphia to provide 500 compactors, which he said should save the city about $13 million in trash collection costs.

Founded in 2003, Needham-based BigBelly Solar began as a company with intentions of developing solutions for geothermal power plants and offshore wind energy. The focus shifted to waste management, according to the BigBelly website, when founder Jim Poss addressed the poor gas mileage and diesel consumption used by garbage trucks.

An early report on BigBelly showed a 2005 raising of $1.1 million from such angel entities as the Massachusetts Green Energy Fund and Jim Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates. Dan Goldman, current chief financial officer of GreatPoint Energy also contributed as an individual investor.