New startup ideas · Physical world · Climate and energy

startup idea

Cellyard

Graded second-life battery packs with warranties, sold to small installers and site owners.

Cellyard runs regional depots that take retired EV and fleet packs, run a short partial-cycle test, and use an ML state-of-health model to grade each pack into a published tier with a warranted capacity and cycle life.

Marketplace
Small business
$100B+ market
Platform others build on
US first

3/5

venture judge

similar startups, last 2 years (3 all-time)

96%

of 4 nearest real companies still alive

yes

3 matching federal grants and programs

Direction supported by government programs and grants

Test it before you build it

$1,000 · 3 weeks · 20 prospects

For $1,000 and 3 weeks, prove that Southern California commercial solar installers will put deposits on warranted, graded second-life packs at $110/kWh - and that the price still clears new LFP by 40%.

Riskiest assumption · A commercial solar installer will pay a deposit for a warranted, graded second-life pack at $110/kWh because it undercuts delivered new LFP by 40% or more - and if falling new-cell prices have already erased that gap, no grade or warranty saves the sale.

1Focus group: who and where

Owner or lead estimator at a 5-30 person commercial solar installer in Southern California who quoted storage to a commercial customer in the last quarter and watched the deal die on battery cost

where to find 20 · The CALSSA (California Solar & Storage Association) member directory (list); RE+ 2026, the national solar and storage trade show running this September, where SoCal installers walk the storage aisles (event); the NABCEP certified professional directory filtered to Southern California plus CED Greentech branch counters in Anaheim and San Diego where installer purchasers pick up gear (channel)

2Sell first, build later

A graded 60 kWh second-life pack from the first Southern California depot lot: published state-of-health report, tier label, 2-year 70%-capacity warranty, standard DC bus and telemetry, delivered within 60 days of the lot closing at 15 reservations.

the ask · $6,600 per Grade A 60 kWh pack ($110/kWh); Grade B at $80/kWh; $500 refundable deposit per pack.

a real yes · A real yes is a $500 deposit paid or a signed purchase order with a delivery month. Booth compliments at RE+, 'put me on the list', and requests for spec sheets with no money attached 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. Priced grade-sheet deposit calls
$900 · 14 days
Print a one-page tier spec - Grade A: 85%+ state of health, 2-year 70%-capacity warranty, $110/kWh; Grade B: 75%+, $80/kWh; standard DC bus - and book 20 installer conversations through CALSSA, NABCEP listings and the RE+ show floor. Pitch a 60 kWh Grade A block against their last dead commercial quote and ask for a $500 refundable deposit on the first depot lot. Both founders split the calls; the RE+ hall pass covers the densest three days.
keep going if · 6 of 20 conversations end with a $500 deposit paid or a signed PO for the first lot
2. New-LFP price floor check
$0 · 5 days
Collect five delivered quotes for comparable new LFP commercial packs from distributors (CED Greentech, BayWa r.e., Krannich) and current spot listings. Put the cheapest delivered $/kWh next to the $110/kWh Grade A price to test whether the discount that justifies the whole idea still exists.
keep going if · Grade A at $110/kWh sits at least 40% below the cheapest delivered new LFP quote
3. Retired pack intake calls
$100 · 10 days
Call 10 fleet managers and dismantlers - Automotive Recyclers Association member listings, LKQ branches, and EV-specialist dismantlers in the LA basin - and price retired 30-100 kWh packs with transport. This tests whether depot economics survive at the published tier prices.
keep going if · Committed supply of 20+ packs per quarter at $40/kWh or less delivered

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 deposit per pack, invoiced to the installer's company - installers buy hardware on invoices every week, and a per-pack deposit at roughly 7% of the pack price is a normal distributor-style commitment they can approve without a finance meeting. set up: Stripe Invoicing ↗

what it reserves · A serial-numbered Grade A pack from the first depot lot, the $110/kWh founding price locked for 12 months, and delivery within 60 days of lot close

refund · Fully refundable any time before the pack ships, and refunded automatically if the pack's grading report misses the warranted tier.

target · 8 deposits from 20 installer conversations within 21 days

before taking money · Stationary battery installations must clear UL 9540 listing and local fire-code review, so take reservations on graded packs but ship nothing for installation until an engineer confirms the listing path for second-life assemblies.

Go: build it if

8 or more $500 deposits from 20 conversations, delivered new LFP quotes confirming a 40%+ gap, and intake secured at $40/kWh or less - lease the first depot bay.

Kill: stop if

Fewer than 3 deposits from 20 conversations, or new LFP delivered quotes land within 25% of the graded price - the window the card worried about has already closed and the depot becomes scrap inventory.

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

outreach message

You quote commercial storage and watch deals die on battery cost - I hear it from SoCal installers every week. I'm grading retired fleet packs into published tiers with a 2-year 70%-capacity warranty: Grade A 60 kWh blocks at $110/kWh, roughly 40% under delivered new LFP, on a standard DC bus so your inverter just works. A $500 refundable deposit holds a pack from the first depot lot. Can I walk you through the grade sheet in 20 minutes this week?

landing page

Warranted second-life battery packs, 40% under new LFP $500 refundable deposit reserves a Grade A 60 kWh pack at $110/kWh, 2-year capacity warranty included. Reserve your pack from the first Southern California lot.

deposit terms

Your $500 deposit reserves one Grade A 60 kWh pack from our first Southern California lot at $110/kWh, locked for 12 months. It is fully refundable any time before your pack ships, and refunded automatically if the pack's grading report misses its warranted tier. The first lot ships within 60 days of reaching 15 reservations.

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 38.7 x 1.61

Warm

competition: more crowded than 20% of ideas · headwind x0.90

+1.5

government priorities, secondary (3 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)70
Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector47
Sector direction (live batch)50
2026 trend analyst25

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)0
Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)17
Operator judge: real pain50

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
Technologist judge50

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 graded, second-life, battery, packs, warranties, sold, installers, regional.

The idea in full

What: Cellyard runs regional depots that take retired EV and fleet packs, run a short partial-cycle test, and use an ML state-of-health model to grade each pack into a published tier with a warranted capacity and cycle life. Graded packs are listed on a marketplace where small commercial sites, EV charging hosts, contractors and small colo operators buy through their installer, at a fraction of new-cell prices. The grading spec and a standard DC bus plus telemetry API are open, so inverter makers, installers and lenders build against them, and lenders can underwrite residual value from Cellyard telemetry rather than a guess.
Why now: Voxel Energy (yc W26) is building energy independent data centers on solar and repurposed batteries and AraBat is in the Techstars 2026 class recycling lithium batteries, so both the demand for reused packs and the shredding alternative are being funded right now, but the radar shows nobody grading and warranting packs in between; 42 companies entered this cluster in the last two years, few of them on the supply side.
Wedge: first customer and entry point: One depot in Southern California buying packs from a single delivery fleet's retirements and selling graded 30-100kWh blocks to twenty local solar installers who already have commercial customers asking for storage.
Path to 100x: Stationary storage is a $100B+ market and small commercial buyers are priced out of it, so a trusted grade plus a warranty is the missing unit of trade; whoever publishes the grade that lenders and inverter makers build against sets the standard others plug into. Locking exclusive intake from fleets, dismantlers and OEM take-back programs is the distribution moat, because supply, not demand, is the constraint for the first five years.
Ceiling: Holding graded inventory on the balance sheet gives distributor margins and distributor multiples, not platform economics, unless the grading standard is adopted by parties who never buy from Cellyard.
Closest real companies, as the generator saw them: Voxel Energy consumes repurposed batteries inside its own data center projects; Cellyard sells graded packs to everyone including such builders. AraBat shreds packs for materials, which is the exit path for the tiers Cellyard rejects, and Sili Energy makes new cell materials rather than reusing existing ones.
Main risk: New LFP cell prices keep falling until a warranted second-life pack is no cheaper than a new one, and the depot inventory becomes scrap.

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
Publishing the grade lenders underwrite against could become a standard, but holding depot inventory earns distributor margins as the card admits.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Regional depots holding graded pack inventory give distributor margins and heavy working capital, though installer buyers pay faster than homeowners.
Operator
3/5
Installers buy packs today and a warranted grade is a real unit of trade, but the value proposition dies the moment new LFP prices cross the used discount.
Technologist
3/5
The state-of-health model is real, but publishing the grading spec and DC bus openly gives away the only defensible technical asset.
Risk
3/5
Intake from a single delivery fleet's retirements plus warranted second-life capacity on the balance sheet is supply and liability concentration.
trends
2/5
Second-life pack grading was viable in 2023 and the card admits falling LFP prices close the window rather than open it.

Similar startups in the directory

Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (graded, second-life, battery, packs, warranties, sold, installers, regional): 3 all-time, 1 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.

Kyten Technologiesyc W26 · 2026 · Robotics and physical worldsite down
Custom Aerospace-Grade Battery Packs
Remorayc W21 · 2021 · Climate and energyalive
Modular carbon capture
Ion Mobilityplugandplay · Robotics and physical worldacquired
Designs, builds and supports next-gen motorcycles for Southeast Asia.

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

203

startup-relevant grants in Climate and energy

$167M

awarded in the sector, tracked

opportunities open now in the sector

I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Remote Monitor and Alert System for Early Detection of Battery Failureawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-30
I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Battery Monitoring and Degradation Detection Tool Using Non-Contact Methodsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-29
I-Corps: Translation Potential of Battery-Free, Cable-Free Embedded Sensing for Civil Infrastructure Monitoringawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-17

All public money by sector →

Market signal

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

Climate and energy · 99 → 115 → 200 → 90 → 45 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 89% aliveYC F26 live: 1 in this cluster, 1% of the batch (was 1% in S26)Since February, of 118 YC companies here: 1 acquired, 2 shut down, 9 rewrote their pitch

Climate and energy: 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: Platform others build on
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: Founder-led sales
Moat: Distribution moat
Geography: US first
Regulation: Some regulation
Vibe: Hot space