Say hello to the newest renewable energy startup in town.
Aerospec Technologies, a (no longer) Chicago-based startup that helps clean energy companies monitor and detect mechanical problems with their wind turbines and solar panels, will be moving to Boston to work closely with its two-person research and development team, which has been based in Boston since September 2017. The move will be effective on March 1.
Formed at the end of 2015, the company has been based in Chicago a little over a year, as co-founder and CEO Lance Li was completing his MBA at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. While based in the Windy City, the company took home a $50,000 first prize from the Clean Energy Trust Competition (a cleantech accelerator program). The prize fueled the company's ambitions to scale.
At that point, the company had many reasons to choose Boston as an ideal place to grow. First, part of its team was already working out of MIT. Second, five out of seven team members already know the greater Boston area, having being affiliated with Harvard or MIT. Third, the local innovation ecosystem proved itself to be attractive.
"[We have] a plan to consolidate our team into one unified force."
"Boston is really startup-friendly," Li said. "[We have] a plan to consolidate our team into one unified force. Also, we are at a stage where we're really scaling up... So, in the next stage of our development, we'll need to be closer to our R&D team in Boston."
Aerospec helps companies detect mechanical issues in their clean energy systems thanks to a system that's a mix of software and hardware. First, the company collects data through drone-connected microchips that gather aerial footage. Then, it enters this data into software that uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to tell owners what the conditions of their sites are.
Li explained that the Boston team has been focusing on creating the controlling system for drones. As the company attempts to scale, the integration between hardware and software will become more important, and so will it be the opportunity for the two parts of the team to work side by side.
Another reason to move to Boston is attracting talent, Li said. Aerospec is looking to hire computer science engineers, electrical engineers and candidates who showed passion in robotics innovation.
Li added that they have started conversations with one additional customer in the north of Boston, as the majority of its current customers in the cleantech industry is active in California and Texas. Currently, the company is raising a "seed Plus pre-Series A" round, Li said.
To establish its new office, Aerospec said it's looking at a few shared working spaces at both MIT and Harvard. The company is planning to be based in Cambridge.
Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that Aerospec has secured a revenue of $2.4 million. In a follow-up email, Lance Li wrote that "we have a revenue pipeline of $2.4MM, so they are not realized yet, so of those contracts are still under negotiation."
