When you're a small business, saving money on your energy bill can, well, take up a lot of energy.
That's why Dr. Reginald Parker founded Atlanta's Optimal Tech Corporation, a hardware-as-a-service startup that provides building owners with products and processes to help reduce energy expenditures.
Recently, Optimal Tech Corporation was one of 76 companies to receive funding from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund, a program granting non-dilutive cash awards to Black founders across the country to fuel promising, growth-stage businesses.
Currently, Optimal works with hoteliers, installing a suite of solar panels and internet-of-things systems to gather vasts amounts of data. Optimal then deploys AI and machine learning technologies to identify efficiencies and inefficiencies, working with facilities to implement fixes that lower energy costs.
Optimal's tech can also help operators track and monitor the performance of a variety of equipment, such as when HVAC filters need to be changed or when microwaves must be replaced. Parker says that the addition of solar panels coupled with the autonomous tracking of appliances can help lower utility costs for client up to 70 percent.
Parker, who received a degree in engineering from MIT, also earned a Ph.D in engineering from Georgia Tech, in addition to an MBA from Florida State.
Following his studies, Parker engaged in a number of entrepreneurial endeavors, including developing the first African American utility-scale solar farm in the United States.
While working for that company, 510nano, Parker came up with the idea for Optimal after encouragement from colleagues. He developed the charts and concepts in his free time and applied for the Google Black Founders Exchange, an initiative from the search giant that helps founders with highly scalable models develop their MVP and attract funding. In 2018, Parker won the program's Demo Day.
Throughout his experience as an entrepreneur, Parker said the hardest part was usually securing seed funding to help get his ideas off the ground. In the funding world, people of color and women do not get the same levels of support that straight white men tend to get, he said.
“They tend to get a larger number of dollars for the same concept due to inherent biases in the field,” Parker added.
However, Parker has seen some progress in recent years.
“Now the playing field is a lot more level,” he said. “The more people that are funded, the more economic development there will be throughout the country.”
As for Optimal, which has four full time employees an 3 contractors, Parker predicts that it will be profitable in 2021.
In the future, Parker hopes to save at least one job annually, reduce over 680 tons of Co2 and produce indirect jobs as well. Optimal also wants to expand to assisted living facilities and apartment buildings.
“Not only do we want to do well, we want to do good,” Parker said.
