MIDDLEBURY — A homegrown cloud software company specializing in data analysis has landed a major federal award.
Faraday — which incubated in the former county courthouse building in Middlebury’s court square — on Wednesday received a $1 million U.S. Department of Energy SunShot Initiative award. The funding will help Faraday develop the software service it sells to the solar power industry.
The Faraday platform, as it’s called, is used by installers and other companies to figure out who would make the best customers for rooftop solar panels. It does this by analyzing data on more than 100 million homes and homeowners to look for characteristics that would signal the best sales targets. In this way, it lowers the cost of making a sale, and, analysts say, will result in more solar collectors on more rooftops across the country.
The feds’ goal in funding Faraday is to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere and fight global warning.
“Acquiring a solar customer today is five times more expensive than for other home upgrades,” Faraday President Robbie Adler said in a press release. “The SunShot award allows us to apply powerful Faraday technology to this important challenge.”
Initially, Faraday will use the SunShot award to work with two solar companies — one in California and one in Texas.
Faraday was founded and is headed by CEO Andy Rossmeissl, a 2005 Middlebury College graduate. The company’s website, faraday.io, lists a total of eight employees. Faraday this past March had announced it had raised $880,000 in investment money to further its business mission.
Rossmeissl on Wednesday sent out a tweet saying he was hanging out with U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz.
Environmentalist Bill McKibben was also on Twitter spreading the word about the $1 million award; he said Faraday has a “great tool for helping pinpoint solar customers.”