It was a pain point that BlackBox Energy Systems was going to address at some point, but until a fair amount of customer discovery, Elijah Jensen did not realize that it was the pain point for his customers.
The tech company — founded in 2020 and based out of Owingsville, Kentucky in Bath County — had been working on a developing a line of high efficiency motors and generators for large factories and industrial centers.
What they found out was that as small as a five-minute delay could result in a loss of tens of thousands of dollars in lost revenue for their clients.
“Most of that comes out when a bearing goes out in a motor and you don’t know about it … until something catastrophic happens,” said Jensen, the company’s CEO and co-founder.
The patented variable frequency drive (VFD) motors that BlackBox was designing had vibration monitoring and temperature monitoring baked into them as a way to add value under the brand name of TruVolt Technologies, as part of the larger industrial Internet of Things (IoT) movement.
Before they knew it, they were developing a device that can be clamped on to any industrial motor within the standard 56 frame size as determined by the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) — and provide real-time information on the motor.
“We were a hardware company that sort of became a hardware plus [Software as a Service],” Jensen said.
As of a recent date, BlackBox was finalizing the design of the MotorVision device, with plans to start beta testing with companies as soon as next month.
Derby City connections
Although Jensen has been in Owingsville, he spent several years of his career in Louisville, earning a master’s degree and a doctorate degree — both in physics — from the University of Louisville.
He later worked as an electrical engineer for what is now known as Redwire, based out of Southern Indiana — before moving to Eastern Kentucky to be a visiting professor in 2020 at Morehead State University.
BlackBox first came onto the radar of the local entrepreneurial ecosystem during the latest edition of our Inno Madness competition. As a seven seed, the company went from taking part in the event’s first-ever tie to making it all the way to the finals, where it lost to our reigning champion, Better Blend out of Florence, Kentucky.
More recently, the company was named Startup of the Year by Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) at its annual gala in May.
“I hope that through our innovations in energy and power space that we can still say that we are powering America and we are doing it here in Appalachia,” Jensen told the crowd during his acceptance speech, referencing the previous slogan that Eastern Kentucky was powering America through its supply of coal.
The company has a headcount of 10, all of whom are based in the Kentuckiana region — and at the company’s office located on Adams Road in Owingsville, in particular.
Jensen said that the company made three full-time hires from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) funding it received from the U.S. Navy this year after being named one of four Kentucky-based tech companies that was awarded funding through state’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Matching Funds Program. In all, the company was awarded more than $200,000.
Generators cost range in price from $1,200 to $5,500. The average price of a motor goes for $3,500. The MotorVision device will cost $255 for the actual hardware and $255 for an annual monitoring subscription.
Most of the company’s customers run large industrial centers. Jensen did say that his business is “industry agnostic,” but that most are either rooted in manufacturing or logistics. A majority of the motors that the company’s clients have are powering pumps, HVAC systems, blowers and conveyors.
Jensen added that the company has an arrangement with an undisclosed client in which BlackBox will serve as an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for a company that is about to launch a generator product.
As of a recent date, the company has raised more than $500,000 since its founding in 2020. Jensen said that for the time being, the company is not actively seeking out investors as it prepares for the launch of MotorVision.
BlackBox currently generates less than $1 million in annual sales, but within five years, Jensen projects that the company could generate as much as $100 million.
