New startup ideas · Physical world · Climate and energy
startup idea
Kilobid
Licensed AI agent that bids your home battery, EV and thermostat into wholesale power markets.
Kilobid is a consumer app that links a household's utility account, battery, EV charger and thermostat through existing APIs, then runs an agent that decides hour by hour when to charge, hold or discharge and submits those decisions into wholesale and utility program markets.
- AI agent as a service
- Consumer
- $10-100B market
- Creates a new category
- US first
4/5
venture judge
1
similar startups, last 2 years (13 all-time)
96%
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
$1,100 · 3 weeks · 30 prospects
Prove in 3 weeks and for $1,100 that Texas battery owners will pay a $49 refundable reservation to hand dispatch control to a licensed aggregator for a few hundred dollars a year.
Riskiest assumption · A Texas homeowner with an installed battery will hand hour-by-hour control of it to a third-party agent and put money down for a projected payout of roughly $400 a year.
1Focus group: who and where
A homeowner in ERCOT's deregulated retail territory (Dallas, Houston, Fort Worth suburbs) with an installed Enphase, LG or other non-Tesla home battery, staring at a September bill after a Texas summer, whose battery today only does backup and simple time-of-use shifting.
where to find 30 · The r/solar and r/enphase subreddits and the DIY Solar Power Forum, where Texas battery owners post payback math weekly (communities); the EnergySage installer directory filtered to Texas battery installers, used to recruit referral partners with past-customer lists (directory feeding a channel); Meta ads targeted to Texas homeowners who follow Enphase and home solar pages (paid channel).
2Sell first, build later
A founding-cohort slot: when Kilobid's ERCOT registration goes live, we connect your battery, EV charger and thermostat through their existing APIs, our agent bids them into one wholesale program, and you get a monthly payout, with target go-live inside 12 months and zero revenue share for your first 90 days.
the ask · $49 refundable reservation now; at go-live, $5 per month plus 20 percent of dispatch earnings
a real yes · A real yes is a completed $49 card payment from a verified battery owner; waitlist emails, upvotes, supportive forum comments and installers saying the idea is great 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. Forty-nine dollar reservation test
$650 · 14 days
Put up a one-page site with the landing copy below and a card checkout taking a $49 refundable reservation, with a qualification question confirming battery brand and ZIP code. Drive traffic with honest build-in-public posts on r/solar and the DIY Solar Power Forum plus $500 of Meta ads targeted to Texas battery and solar interests. One founder answers every comment thread personally.
keep going if · 15 reservations from 300 unique visitors, at least 10 from verified battery owners in ERCOT ZIP codes
2. Installer referral channel test
$75 · 14 days
Call 12 Texas battery installers found through the EnergySage directory and ask them to email past battery customers a referral link, offering $100 per customer who later activates. This tests the card's stated acquisition channel before spending more on ads.
keep going if · 3 of 12 installers agree in writing and at least one send produces 5 or more reservations
3. Control and payout interviews
$375 · 10 days
Run 15 recorded 30-minute calls with Texas battery owners recruited from the reservation list and the forums, paying a $25 gift card each. Show the real payout math for one ERCOT program and ask two questions: would you let our agent decide when your battery charges and sells, and what yearly payout makes that worth it.
keep going if · 10 of 15 accept automated dispatch control at a projected $400 per year, and the median acceptable payout floor is under $600
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.
$49
per prospect, refundable
how · A $49 refundable reservation taken by card at checkout on the landing page, the standard consumer pre-order instrument, sized so a homeowner treats it as a real decision but not a risk; the homeowner is the only signer and confirms battery brand and ZIP at payment. set up: Stripe Checkout ↗
what it reserves · A founding-cohort slot in Kilobid's first ERCOT program, priority onboarding by installer region, and zero revenue share for the first 90 days live
refund · Fully refundable any time before go-live with one click from the confirmation email, and refunded automatically if Kilobid is not licensed to dispatch in the owner's area within 12 months.
target · 25 reservations from roughly 400 owners reached within 21 days
before taking money · Do not enroll, dispatch or take market revenue from any household device before Kilobid holds its ERCOT market participant registration and Texas aggregator standing; until then, collect only refundable reservations held in a separate account.
Go: build it if
25 paid $49 reservations within 3 weeks at under $30 blended cost per reservation, 3 installers referring, and a median acceptable payout floor under $600 per year in interviews
Kill: stop if
Fewer than 8 reservations from 300 or more qualified visitors, or interviews showing owners demand more than $800 per year to hand over dispatch control
5 Scripts to run itoutreach message, landing copy, deposit terms · click to open
outreach message
You bought a battery and the payback still depends on rate tricks you have to babysit. I am building Kilobid: we hold the ERCOT market registrations, our agent decides hour by hour when your battery charges, holds or sells, and you get a monthly payout with a 20 percent revenue share to us. Founding slots are a $49 refundable reservation, and reservation holders pay no revenue share for their first 90 days. Can I take 20 minutes on a call to check whether your setup qualifies?
landing page
Your battery earns wholesale power money while you sleep. $49 refundable reservation: a founding slot in our first ERCOT program and zero revenue share for your first 90 days. Reserve your slot now, refund yourself any time with one click.
deposit terms
Your $49 reservation holds a founding-cohort slot in Kilobid's first ERCOT program and waives our 20 percent revenue share for your first 90 days live. It is fully refundable any time before your system goes live, with one click from your confirmation email. If we are not licensed to dispatch in your area within 12 months, we refund you automatically.
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.
90
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 55.7 x 1.61
Warm
competition: more crowded than 20% of ideas · headwind x0.90
+2.9
government priorities, secondary (18 matching grants)
Trend
47
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)23
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector89
- Sector direction (live batch)50
- 2026 trend analyst25
Demand
75
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)100
- Someone already pays (similar companies, recent / all-time)100
- Operator judge: real pain25
100x potential
58
Can it return a fund? The venture judge (double weight), market-size and moat axes, neighbours still alive, the technologist judge.
- Venture judge75
- Market size axis67
- Moat axis80
- Neighbours still alive24
- Technologist judge25
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 licensed, bids, home, battery, thermostat, wholesale, power, consumer.
The idea in full
- What
- Kilobid is a consumer app that links a household's utility account, battery, EV charger and thermostat through existing APIs, then runs an agent that decides hour by hour when to charge, hold or discharge and submits those decisions into wholesale and utility program markets. Kilobid itself holds the ISO market participant registration and the state-level retail and aggregator licenses, so the household never files anything; it signs up in ten minutes and takes a monthly payout. Revenue is a share of dispatch earnings plus a flat subscription, with no hardware on Kilobid's balance sheet.
- Why now
- Two of the last three YC energy companies in this cluster, NODI Energy (yc X25) and Voxel Energy (yc W26), are funded to route distributed and repurposed battery capacity to data centers, which means the buy side for household flexibility now exists; meanwhile the 2022 graveyard entries Pelm (Plaid for utilities) and Jasmine Energy (claim solar incentives with AI) show that selling utility plumbing or incentive paperwork without holding the market license never reached the money.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- Homeowners in one deregulated ISO with an already installed battery, acquired through installer referral, paid out on a single program before any second market is added.
- Path to 100x
- US residential electricity and the flexibility programs attached to it are a tens of billions of dollars market, and a household-side market participant is a category that does not exist today because licensing has kept it institutional. Whoever holds licenses across the most ISOs and states becomes the default counterparty every installer and OEM plugs into, and licenses plus enrolled fleet compound faster than a new entrant can replicate.
- Ceiling
- Utilities and OEMs bundle their own aggregation for free with the hardware, leaving Kilobid only the shrinking pool of mixed-brand homes.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- NODI Energy and Voxel Energy aggregate distributed capacity for data center offtake, not for households; Astro (yc W25) is an AI developer for projects, not a consumer counterparty; WattShift sells rate and price signal data, which Kilobid consumes rather than resells; Leafpress and Jasmine Energy died as unlicensed software layers.
- Main risk
- Per household dispatch revenue stays too small to cover acquisition cost before enough assets are enrolled to matter.
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
4/5
Holding ISO and state licenses households cannot get is a compounding regulatory moat over a tens-of-billions flexibility market, at software margins.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Holding ISO market participant registration plus state aggregator licenses is a long regulatory path with tiny per household dispatch revenue behind it.
Operator
2/5
A homeowner's pain is a slightly high bill, not a budget line, and Kilobid asks them to hand over battery control for a small monthly payout.
Technologist
2/5
The wedge is ISO registration and state licenses over existing device APIs, not technology, and OEMs can bundle aggregation in one firmware release.
Risk
4/5
Holding the ISO participant registration and state aggregator licenses itself is the exact footing Pelm and Jasmine Energy lacked.
trends
2/5
Climate-energy fell to 1% of YC S26 and licensed household aggregation was equally pitchable in 2023; no dated shift opens this window.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (licensed, bids, home, battery, thermostat, wholesale, power, consumer): 13 all-time, 1 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.
Scalable, Long-Lifetime Grid Energy Storage
Virtual power plant for consumers' smart device installations
First all-in-one home energy trading platform, enabled by seamless lego-like power system
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Building Shein of Home: tech-driven, design-mfr Home Lifestyle Brand
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Doblet solves the phone battery problem. We're building the first…
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Plunk’s advanced analytics revolutionize the way homeowners, home experts, and investors value and invest in residential real estate—through the power of AI, Machine Learning and image analysis.
Credible is challenging the status quo by giving power to the consumer by creating a marketplace where users can compare personalized, prequalified rates and quotes from multiple lenders and carriers, for student loans, mortgages, personal loans, and insurance. We believe in a world where ‘ethical’, ‘lending’, and ‘insurance’ can coexist, and on a mission to help people find the best loan or insurance policy possible. We've created the only unbiased loan and insurance buying process, to make the search straightforward and clear.
An innovator and market leader in the development and commercialization of solid-state electrolyte and battery technologies.
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.
8
grants and programs matching the idea
197
startup-relevant grants in Climate and energy
$165M
awarded in the sector, tracked
17
opportunities open now in the sector
National Science Foundation · SBIR Phase I · $305K · posted 2026-06-23
- Development and assessment of a powered prosthetic digit system with novel wrist-based control and integrated sensory feedbackawardhigh relevance
NIH / NINDS · STTR phase II · $500K · posted 2026-09-01
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of an Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Powered Materials Characterization Platform for Automated Microscopy and Spectroscopy Analyticsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-19
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of Cross-Platform Wearable Interface for Spatial and Ambient Computingawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
- Development of a Novel Pediatric LVAD for Home Discharge of Children Awaiting Heart Transplantawardhigh relevance
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2026-08-10
- I-Corps: Translation potential of an Artificial Intelligence-driven electricity market optimization platformawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-17
- Developing a Learning Platform to Support Minimally Verbal Individuals with Autismawardhigh relevance
NIH / NIDCD · STTR phase I · $313K · posted 2026-07-01
- Lateral Flow-Electrochemiluminescent (LF-ECL) Test Strips and Portable Reader for Ultrasensitive Foodborne Pathogen Detectionawardhigh relevance
NIH / NCEZID · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2025-09-30
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 → 114 → 199 → 89 → 37 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 91% aliveYC F26 live: 1 in this cluster, 2% of the batch (was 1% in S26)Since February, of 118 YC companies here: 1 acquired, 2 shut down, 4 rewrote their pitch
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
- Consumer
- Business model
- AI agent as a service
- Path to 100x
- Creates a new category
- Market size
- $10-100B market
- Capital intensity
- Capital-light (software margins)
- Speed to revenue
- Revenue in 1-3 years
- Technical depth
- Real engineering
- Go-to-market
- Self-serve
- Moat
- License or regulatory moat
- Geography
- US first
- Regulation
- Heavily regulated
- Vibe
- Hot space
Listed under
An idea sits in its own sector and in any sector its text clearly touches.
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