New startup ideas · AI and software · AI infra and compute

startup idea

Wattlot

Small businesses with spare power host inference pods; we hold the permits.

Wattlot is a marketplace where small industrial businesses with unused electrical service and yard space, machine shops, grain handlers, cold stores, rural ISPs, host containerized inference pods and get paid for delivered compute hours.

Marketplace
Small business
$100B+ market
Creates a new category
US first

3/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (32 all-time)

99%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

yes

8 matching federal grants and programs

Direction supported by government programs and grants

Test it before you build it

$1,050 · 4 weeks · 25 prospects

For $1,050 and 4 weeks, prove small industrial hosts will pay a $500 deposit today for pod income that arrives only after permits clear, with 8 deposits collected across one Iowa co-op territory.

Riskiest assumption · A small industrial owner with idle 480V service will hand over money today for hosting income that begins only after Wattlot clears permits and interconnection, meaning the host side of the marketplace, not the compute side, will fund the waiting period

1Focus group: who and where

The owner or general manager of a small industrial business in rural Iowa electric cooperative territory - a grain elevator, machine shop or cold store - with 480V three-phase service, 100-500 kW of capacity idle outside the busy season, and a monthly demand charge they already resent paying

where to find 25 · The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship's public grain dealer and warehouse license lists, which name every elevator operator in the state with addresses (directory); one member co-op's commercial accounts reached through its member services manager via the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives (channel); the Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, September 1-3, where hundreds of these owners walk the grounds this week (event)

2Sell first, build later

Reserve a pod slot: Wattlot delivers a permitted, interconnected 200 kW inference pod on your yard within 9 months of deposit, reimburses your full metered power cost, and pays a hosting payout estimated at $2,000-4,000 per month; the $2,500 commissioning fee is charged only after the pod is energized

the ask · $500 refundable reservation deposit now; $2,500 commissioning fee at energization; a 15% take rate on hosting payouts thereafter

a real yes · A real yes is $500 moved by check or card with a countersigned reservation letter; a handshake, an invitation to come back once permits clear, or the co-op's enthusiasm without member deposits do not count

3Small experiments

The first one attacks the riskiest assumption; each ends with a number that says whether to run the next.

1. Host deposit pitch, 20 site visits
$750 · 14 days
Print a one-page offer and drive one co-op territory plus two days at the Farm Progress Show: Wattlot installs and insures a containerized 200 kW inference pod, holds every permit and the interconnection paperwork, reimburses metered power and pays an estimated $2,000-4,000 per month hosting payout. The ask on the spot is a $500 refundable deposit, by check or card, to reserve a site assessment and a numbered slot in the first 20-site Iowa cohort. One founder runs all visits.
keep going if · 6 of 20 owners pitched pay the $500 deposit on the spot or within one week
2. Co-op channel and tariff test
$300 · 14 days
Through the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives, meet 5 co-op general managers or member services managers. Ask two things: will the co-op introduce Wattlot to 10 or more commercial members, and how is a 200 kW behind-the-meter load addition treated under the current tariff and their generation and transmission co-op's rules. This surfaces the new-load-class stall risk before any hardware exists.
keep going if · 1 co-op agrees in writing to make member introductions and confirms no new-load-class review blocks a 200 kW addition under its current tariff
3. Compute off-take price check
$0 · 10 days
Call 5 buyers of distributed capacity, starting with Expanse and Zibra Labs from the card plus GPU brokers they name, and request written indicative pricing for containerized inference capacity at rural sites with relaxed latency. Compare against pod hardware depreciation to check whether the promised host payout survives.
keep going if · 2 written price indications at a rate that supports a $2,000-4,000 monthly host payout after hardware depreciation

4Collect a deposit up front

Tesla took $1,000 refundable reservations for the Model 3 and $100 for the Cybertruck before building either: the deposit is the measurement, not the revenue.

$500

per prospect, refundable

how · A $500 refundable reservation taken during the site visit by check or a card reader - checks are how this buyer pays, and a payment link emailed to a grain elevator would die unopened - with the founder countersigning a one-page reservation letter naming the assessment date and cohort slot number set up: Stripe Payment Links ↗

what it reserves · A numbered slot in the first 20-site Iowa cohort, a site assessment within 30 days, and year-one payout terms locked before the wider rollout

refund · Refunded in full at any time on request, and refunded automatically if Wattlot has not filed the site's interconnection application within 120 days

target · 8 deposits from 25 owner conversations within 30 days

before taking money · Behind-the-meter load additions sit under co-op tariffs and Iowa Utilities Commission jurisdiction, so no hardware may be energized and no payout guaranteed before the co-op confirms tariff treatment, and all deposits must be held refundable in a separate account.

Go: build it if

8 or more $500 deposits banked, one co-op channel agreement in writing with tariff treatment confirmed, and 2 compute price indications that clear pod depreciation - order the first pod and start the permit template

Kill: stop if

Fewer than 3 deposits from 25 owner conversations - the hosts will not fund the wait and the wrong-side-pays objection stands - or every co-op GM says a 200 kW addition triggers a new-load-class review; stop

5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open

outreach message

You're paying a demand charge every month on 480 volt service that sits mostly idle outside your busy season. I'm building Wattlot: we place a containerized computing pod on your yard, we hold every permit and all the interconnection paperwork, we reimburse your metered power and pay you an estimated $2,000 to $4,000 a month for a 200 kW pod. A refundable $500 deposit reserves a site assessment and one of our first 20 Iowa slots. Can I get 20 minutes to walk your service entrance this week?

landing page

Your idle 480 volt service can earn $2,000 a month $500 refundable deposit reserves a site assessment and a first-cohort pod slot Reserve your slot - 20 Iowa sites this year

deposit terms

Your $500 deposit reserves a numbered slot in Wattlot's first 20-site Iowa cohort and a site assessment within 30 days. It is refundable in full at any time on request, and refunded automatically if we have not filed your interconnection application within 120 days. The deposit is credited against the $2,500 commissioning fee, which is due only after your pod is installed and energized.

Would you run this test?

One tap. The yes-share feeds the Demand pillar of this idea's score; nobody sees who answered.

Budgets are out-of-pocket estimates for a team of one to three, US market. Size the deposit to the deal, and check the terms before taking money in a regulated line.

Scorecard

One score that balances how trendy the idea is, the demand for it and its potential for 100x, with competition measured relative to every other idea in the catalog. Recent startup trends first, government priorities second.

Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 44.2 x 1.61

Active

competition: more crowded than 69% of ideas · headwind x0.65

+3.1

government priorities, secondary (22 matching grants)

Trend

Is the wave forming now? 2025-26 entrants vs 2023-24, rounds since 2025, the sector's live-batch direction, the 2026 trend analyst.

Entrants 2025-26 vs 2023-24 (similar companies)68
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector82
Sector direction (live batch)100
2026 trend analyst50

Demand

Does anyone want it? YC's current RFS, companies already paid for something similar, the operator judge, founders' yes-rate in decks, readers who would run the test.

YC asks for it (current RFS: idea / sector)30
Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
Operator judge: real pain25

100x potential

Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.

Venture judge50
Market size axis100
Moat axis80
Neighbours still alive30
Technologist judge75

Score = 100 x cbrt(Trend x Demand x 100x) x (1 - 0.5 x crowding) + government bonus (max 5), calibrated so the 95th-percentile idea scores 90 (order never changes). A geometric mean: a weak pillar cannot be papered over. Percentiles are among the 272 ideas in the catalog; the terms matched were spare, power, host, inference, pods, hold, marketplace, industrial.

The idea in full

What: Wattlot is a marketplace where small industrial businesses with unused electrical service and yard space, machine shops, grain handlers, cold stores, rural ISPs, host containerized inference pods and get paid for delivered compute hours. Wattlot owns the hard part: the interconnection agreements, air and noise permits, utility demand-response enrollment and NERC-adjacent compliance that a single small business cannot obtain, plus the pod hardware and thermal design. Hosts are the paying side, giving up a take rate on payouts and a fee for the permitting and commissioning package.
Why now: Expanse (YC X26) is already monetizing wasted GPU capacity and Zibra Labs (YC X26) is building a distributed runtime for AI workloads at scale, so the software to use scattered supply exists; YC's Fall 2026 Compute at Sea request and Atomarine's floating nuclear data centers show how far builders will go for interconnected power, while the cheapest unused megawatts sit behind small business meters on land.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: Rural electric cooperative territory in one state: sign twenty existing commercial members with 480V service and idle load, using the co-op as the channel and the single permitting jurisdiction as the template.
Path to 100x: Data center capacity is a $100B+ annual build, and every gigawatt Wattlot assembles from small business sites is capacity that never enters a five-year interconnection queue. The regulatory moat compounds: permit templates, co-op agreements and demand-response enrollments per jurisdiction are slow to copy, and once a state's small business power is contracted, the second entrant finds no supply left.
Ceiling: Pod economics stay hostage to hardware depreciation and site-by-site permitting cost, so the business scales linearly with field crews instead of with the network.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: Expanse unlocks wasted GPU capacity that already exists; Wattlot creates supply by placing hardware behind small business meters, and its defensibility is the permit and interconnection stack rather than the scheduler. Zibra Labs and OpenRelay supply the hardware-agnostic runtime that makes such fragmented capacity sellable.
Main risk: Utilities and state regulators classify aggregated behind-the-meter compute as a new load class and stall approvals for years.

Five judges

Each judge scores every idea in the catalog with a named rubric; the venture judge decides whether a card is shown at all (4-5 is venture-grade).

Venture investor
3/5
Permit stack per jurisdiction is a real moat, but the card admits pod economics may scale linearly with field crews and depreciation.
Bootstrapper
1/5
Pod hardware, interconnection agreements and per-jurisdiction air and noise permits burn far past $500k before one compute hour is billed.
Operator
2/5
The grain handler with idle 480V service pays a commissioning fee for a benefit that arrives only after permits clear, which is the wrong side paying.
Technologist
4/5
Pod thermal design plus per-jurisdiction interconnection and NERC-adjacent permit stacks is slow, physical expertise that a scheduler company cannot copy.
Risk
3/5
Permits, interconnection agreements and co-op contracts are genuine licensed footing, but one state regulator creating a new load class stalls approvals for years.
trends
3/5
Same 2025-2026 power scarcity as Swingbus, but multi-year site-by-site permitting means the window likely closes before behind-the-meter pods reach scale.

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Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (spare, power, host, inference, pods, hold, marketplace, industrial): 32 all-time, 9 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

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Run this as an Idea Check →

The generator's reference companies

Real companies the model named as closest when it wrote the card, with their fate. A check mark is a company the radar could verify in its directory.

Public money in this direction

US federal grants, SBIR/STTR awards and open opportunities from the radar's public-money feed, matched to the idea's terms; the sector totals give the context.

grants and programs matching the idea

243

startup-relevant grants in AI infra and compute

$339M

awarded in the sector, tracked

opportunities open now in the sector

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National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-19
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National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
I-Corps: Translation Potential of an electroacoustic sensing technology using speakers as sensorsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-10
NANO-PAVE: A Nanopore-Based Method for AAV Capsid Quality Assessmentawardhigh relevance
NIH / NCATS · SBIR phase I · $350K · posted 2026-07-01
Next-Gen Oral Therapeutics for Concomitant Clostridioides difficile Infection and IBDawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIAID · SBIR phase I · $314K · posted 2025-08-13
CAREER: FLEX-MEG: Flexible Quantum MEG with Physics-Aware Compressed Sensing for Scalable, Real-Time Neural Imagingawardmedium relevance
National Science Foundation · CSCS: Circuits and Systems for · $500K · posted 2026-08-24

All public money by sector →

Market signal

What the radar sees in AI infra and compute: new companies by cohort year, the forming YC batch, and outcomes since the February snapshot.

AI infra and compute · 11 → 34 → 59 → 58 → 72 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 95% aliveYC F26 live: 6 in this cluster, 5% of the batch (was 8% in S26)Since February, of 116 YC companies here: 3 acquired, 3 shut down, 26 rewrote their pitch

AI infra and compute: companies, trend and grants →

Design attributes

The card is one cell of a designed set: every axis below was chosen before the text was written, and the text had to realize it.

Buyer: Small business
Business model: Marketplace
Path to 100x: Creates a new category
Market size: $100B+ market
Capital intensity: Capital-heavy (hardware, bio, infra)
Speed to revenue: Revenue in 1-3 years
Technical depth: Deep tech: ML, hardware, bio
Go-to-market: Partners and channels
Moat: License or regulatory moat
Geography: US first
Regulation: Heavily regulated
Vibe: Boring business