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PepperDash Technology Corp. is changing up its successful recipe of custom programming of controls systems for audiovisual and IT systems. After years of customer requests, the Allston-based company has begun developing software to help control all of a building’s systems to rein in energy use.
“There are a lot of people building better clean-energy sources, and that is great, but eventually energy consumption has to be made more efficient. That’s the only thing that makes sense,” said president and CEO Howard Nunes.
The 23-person coding shop doesn’t need to add any new ingredients to its revenue stew, however. Self-funded since it launched in 2000, PepperDash made $2.6 million last year programming touchscreen-based uber-remotes for home-audio and home-theater systems as well as commercial control systems for AV and IT systems.
Nunes met his co-founders — CTO Sumanth Rayancha and COO David Huselid — when they all worked for Breakaway Solutions Inc. Rayancha, the AV geek of the group, told Nunes about a business idea for custom programming on high-end AV control systems.
Early on, PepperDash made a name for itself by programming systems from Crestron Electronics Inc. and AMX Corp., the giants in both home AV control and building automation, Nunes said.
PepperDash sells services primarily through channels, functioning as a subcontractor to a general contractor. Its code runs at locations as diverse as defense contractors BAE Systems Inc. and Bath Iron Works and hospitals such as Brigham & Women’s and Massachusetts General.
PepperDash just last week hired a new software architect to develop the code that would integrate and control all of a building’s systems. Designing it to function in a software-as-a-service model, PepperDash hopes to allow customers the ability to customize and automate when they turn on and off equipment such PCs and servers, when to ramp up or shut off lighting, and localize HVAC control.
That ability — to dynamically control a building’s power use — falls under the demand-response segment, and it is a nascent market, said Ahmad Faruqui, a San Francisco-based principal with The Brattle Group. Better technology to automate demand response would speed adoption. “Currently that technology is quite limited and primitive, and any enhancement to that will allow more customers to participate,” Faruqui said.
Nunes said the company has an aggressive development plan and is looking to have a prototype ready early next year. “We hope to have that in the hands of people by the end of Q1,” he said.
Those people include venture capitalists, who could provide the company’s first outside financing.
Pepperdash Technology Corp.
Founded: 2000
Employees: 23
Location: Allston
Business: Control systems software
Web: www.pepperdash.com
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