This Detroit startup is turning to utilities to make home efficiency upgrades cheaper

Ask any homeowner: renovation projects are no fun at all. From finding a contractor to determining a fair price, the process is rife with uncertainty. 

Plenty of startups have popped up to help homeowners tackle electrification projects, including installing solar panels and replacing gas furnaces with heat pumps. But they still struggle with the cost question: acquiring customers is often more than half the battle.

Pearl Edison thinks the answer is utilities.

“As much as anything, we are leveraging their brand equity and trust,” Evan Anderson, co-founder and CEO of Pearl Edison, told TechCrunch.

Investors have bought into the idea. The Detroit-based startup has raised a $3.3 million seed round from New System Ventures and Commonweal Ventures, the company exclusively told TechCrunch. Lightbank and Newlab participated.

Pearl Edison works with utilities to identify customers who are most likely to benefit from energy retrofit projects, including heat pumps and additional insulation. It builds a white-labeled website for the utility, and it helps the larger organization run campaigns to sign people up for energy efficiency upgrades.

The company uses a range of data sources to design a job and generate a price, which it guarantees for the customer. After its software produces a first draft of the plans, it sends workers out to verify everything in the field before finalizing the design.

It then sends the jobs to vetted contractors, who complete the installation. Pearl Edison makes money on the installs itself, estimating that the majority of those jobs will cost less than it quotes. Homeowners should save money, too, Anderson said, because Pearl Edison can contract the job for less since the installers don’t have to waste time acquiring customers.

Already, the company has programs set up with two utilities, DT Energy in Michigan and Duquesne Light in the Pittsburgh area, and one government, the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Anderson said the company will add two more utilities this year. 

“We’ve found them to be good partners,” Anderson said.