NewsLucid Design Group announces new funding, cites progress in '09
January 21, 2010
Oakland, CA - Lucid Design Group, Inc., a pioneer and leader in real-time energy monitoring and display systems for commercial buildings, today announced the recent completion of $1.5 million Series A funding, capping a year of substantial growth and achievement in 2009.
The investment was led by Dry Creek Ventures of Healdsburg, a firm focused on the clean tech sector.
"These funds culminated a year of significant progress for Lucid Design Group," said Michael Murray, Lucid CEO. "In 2009, we grew our customer base, announced a low-cost version of our Building Dashboard® product, launched a reseller program that will broaden our markets and participated in a number of high-profile projects that gained nationwide recognition. In 2010, we expect to build on those achievements and enable more people in more places to become actively involved in conservation through real-time resource use feedback," he added.
Building Dashboard, Lucid's hosted software, now in its third generation, provides a simple, easy-to-understand web-based display that offers real-time feedback on building resource use. Graphs and gauges are updated every 60 seconds and can be viewed over the web. Comparisons can be made from hourly to yearly time scales. Usage can be expressed in energy units, cost, carbon emissions and other measurements.
Studies and Lucid's customer experiences have shown that up-to-the-minute information on how much energy is being used in buildings can motivate building occupants to find ways to reduce consumption. Lucid team members' research has demonstrated that real-time feedback can result in electricity use reductions of up to 56 percent.
In 2009, Lucid introduced Building Dashboard Starter®, which was created following extensive experience with customers. Starter provides a low-cost, entry-level solution that can be installed relatively easily and will work with nearly all existing electrical and metering systems. It consists of electricity monitoring for two buildings, a competition module and educational features.
Last year, Lucid also started the Building Dashboard Reseller Program, which enables third parties to offer the product directly to their customers, with the reseller's branding. Reseller partners can manage the installation of Lucid's hardware and software solution at the customer site or configure the customer's building automation system to interoperate with Building Dashboard.
Lucid also won national recognition last year through a number of projects.
Building Dashboard was part of Team California's "Refract House," which won third place overall and first place in communications during the U.S. Department of Energy's international Solar Decathlon 2009 on the National Mall.
Building Dashboard was also selected as a finalist in the visual art and design category of the 2009 Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Awards, which recognized excellence and significant contributions to innovation, implementation and communication of energy and environmental solutions.
* Building Dashboard® is a registered trademark of Lucid Design Group, Inc., Oakland, Calif.
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About Lucid
Founded in 2004, Lucid is a privately held software company and a pioneer in providing real-time information feedback to teach, inspire behavior change and save energy and water resources in buildings. Over the past eight years, Lucid's team has endeavored to make resource use visible, accessible and engaging so that building occupants have the data visualization and communication tools to manage and reduce their consumption.
