Firm hopes to grow by staying green

Sarasota-based DwellGreen, a startup with an ambitious plan to bring the green building concept to homeowners nationwide, is on the kind of roll that would make most startups pretty envious.

In just the last six weeks, the company has notched the following accomplishments:

• Secured more than $800,000 in capital from angel investors, an effort so successful it turned a few would-be financial backers away;

• Won a $250,000 job-stimulus grant from Sarasota County, for which the company now seeks at least five full-time employees and more than 10 freelance electrical contractor jobs;

• Hired several new executives, including a chief operating officer and a chief financial officer. The new COO is Steve Schmidt, a U.S. Navy veteran who served in Iraq, including a stint as deputy chief for economic development in Baghdad;

• Received commitments from three investors who each plan to open at least two DwellGreen franchises, both in Florida and nationwide.

“We've hit a vein with investors who realize the potential,” DwellGreen President and CEO John Ferrari tells Coffee Talk. “We are blessed to have a really cool concept.”

That concept is to provide a homeowner with a green guide to home improvement, both for environmental and cost-saving purposes. The company does that through home audits, where a certified green construction technician examines everything from windowpanes to air ducts. The technician creates a Web-based report for the homeowner with an analysis of the short-term costs and long-term savings if the green changes are made. The audit costs $299. (See Business Review, Aug. 20, 2009.)

The company, which longtime local green building construction experts John Lambie and Steve Ellis founded in April 2009, also recently added a new product to its green portfolio. The product, eMonitor, manages every energy-use aspect of a home, down to the seconds a light is on and if a refrigerator door is ajar. A homeowner can access eMontior's data remotely online.

The eMonitor system wowed Sarasota County officials when DwellGreen showed it off during a recent presentation. So much so that county officials awarded the company the $250,000 grant to implement the machines in 250 county homes. That's what some of the new hires will be working on.

“It's a big research and development project,” says Ferrari. “We hope this will get us some national attention.”