New startup ideas · Physical world · Climate and energy
startup idea
Wattfolio
The autopilot subscription that runs every electric device in the home.
Wattfolio is a consumer subscription that takes control of heat pumps, EV chargers, solar inverters, and home batteries and runs them against dynamic electricity prices using learned thermal models of each house and ML price forecasts.
- Software subscription
- Consumer
- $10-100B market
- Creates a new category
- Global from day one
3/5
venture judge
7
similar startups, last 2 years (41 all-time)
79%
of 3 nearest real companies still alive
yes
8 matching federal grants and programs
Direction supported by government programs and grants
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.
61
Idea Score, 0-100 · raw 37.1 x 1.64
Active
competition: more crowded than 61% of ideas · headwind x0.70
+4.5
government priorities, secondary (106 matching grants)
Trend
52
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)65
- Rounds announced 2025+ in the sector68
- Sector direction (live batch)50
- 2026 trend analyst25
Demand
42
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)100
- Operator judge: real pain25
100x potential
47
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 axis67
- Moat axis80
- Neighbours still alive12
- 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 autopilot, subscription, electric, device, home, consumer, control, heat.
The idea in full
- What
- Wattfolio is a consumer subscription that takes control of heat pumps, EV chargers, solar inverters, and home batteries and runs them against dynamic electricity prices using learned thermal models of each house and ML price forecasts. It is distributed white-label through heat pump OEMs and installer networks worldwide, who bundle it at point of sale, so households buy comfort and a lower bill rather than an app they must discover.
- Why now
- Exnaton AG (PnP 2026) is rolling out AI-analyzed dynamic tariffs and Energy Sharing, EQUIUM is pushing new heat pump hardware into buildings, and the graveyard shows SunSwitch (2024) dying on a hardware-bundled solar subscription - the software-only control layer riding OEM channels is the model that survives.
- Wedge: first customer and entry point
- One heat pump OEM in one dynamic-tariff market, shipping Wattfolio as the default controller app, proving a measurable bill reduction per home in the first heating season.
- Path to 100x
- Hundreds of millions of homes are electrifying, and the software that coordinates all devices in a home is a new category above any single OEM's app - won through distribution, since the installer channel decides defaults. A few tens of millions of subscribing households at software margins, plus flexibility revenue shared with licensed aggregator partners, is a multi-billion revenue business.
- Ceiling
- If per-home savings stay small, consumer willingness to pay caps ARPU at a few dollars a month and the outcome depends entirely on volume.
- Closest real companies, as the generator saw them
- Exnaton AG sells tariff software to utilities, sitting on the supplier side; Wattfolio sits with the device owner across all suppliers. SunSwitch owned the hardware and died under its capital load; Wattfolio owns only the control layer.
- Main risk
- Device OEMs decide the control layer is strategic and build a good-enough version in-house.
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
Hundreds of millions of electrifying homes is a real pool, but a few dollars a month ARPU on borrowed OEM distribution is a fragile moat.
Bootstrapper
2/5
Consumer ARPU of a few dollars a month, dependent on heat pump OEMs who can build the controller themselves, is a volume game not a cashflow one.
Operator
2/5
Homeowner savings of a few dollars a month is a vitamin, and the OEM channel owns the customer, not Wattfolio.
Technologist
2/5
Learned home thermal models are real but modest, and the card admits the heat pump OEM whose channel it depends on can build a good-enough controller.
Risk
2/5
Distribution is entirely the heat pump OEM channel, and the same OEMs can make the control layer in-house.
trends
2/5
Dynamic tariffs and heat pump control were sellable in 2023, and climate is down to 1% of the YC S26 batch - no fresh shift here.
Similar startups in the directory
Companies whose pitch matches most of the idea's terms (autopilot, subscription, electric, device, home, consumer, control, heat): 41 all-time, 7 from the last two years. Same matching as Idea Check.
The autopilot for home energy
On-device AI that knows your entire life and does your work overnight.
Less plastic. Lower cost. Bigger manufacturing scale.
Smart packaging that tracks consumer product usage
Zuta-Core develops a vacuum-based cooling device for electronic components.
Belun Technology makes a wearable device for monitoring users' health while sleeping.
Serenity Power drives the clean energy transition using advanced Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) technology, focusing on decarbonizing complex industries.
Fluid Wire Robotics develops high-performance force-controllable robotic arms for operations in critical environments. Based on proprietary "Fluid Wire" technology, they enable advanced manipulation in oil & gas facilities, underwater areas, nuclear power plants, mines and clean-rooms.
Charging session management for fleet EVs.
Tech-enabled heat pump contractor that cuts costs by 60%
Home - Propellane
Provider of healthcare services intended to help patients get rid of their alcohol addiction. The company offers a monthly subscription program that accompanies the consumer or their loved one through different services, as they progress with the program, they are able to have a healthier relationship with alcohol under measurable success criteria, providing patients with information based on science and medicine in a fresh, dignified and respectful way to control their alcohol addiction.
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
180
startup-relevant grants in Climate and energy
$155M
awarded in the sector, tracked
19
opportunities open now in the sector
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Longitudinal Diagnostic Method for Residential Branch Circuits Serving Sustained High Impact Electrical Loadsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-19
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of an Electrochemical Bandage to Manage Chronic Wound Infectionsawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-17
National Science Foundation · CSCS: Circuits and Systems for · $550K · posted 2026-08-04
- DEVELOPMENT & TESTING OF A NOVEL THERAPEUTIC DEVICE FOR IMPROVING MOBILITY IN PATIENTS WITH LOWER-EXTREMITY PERIPHERAL ARTERY DISEASEawardhigh relevance
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2026-08-01
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of a Robotic Hand Therapy System with Mirror-based Feedbackawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-07-24
NIH / NHLBI · SBIR phase II · $1M · posted 2025-08-01
- Implantable Intelligent Engineered System to Enable Virtual Bidirectional Muscle-Prosthesis Mechanical Interaction for Amputeesawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · M3X - Mind, Machine, and Motor, Special Initiatives, Dynamics, Control and System D · $809K · posted 2026-08-21
- I-Corps: Translation Potential of Biomimetic Nanostructured Surfaces for Chemical-free Bacterial Controlawardhigh relevance
National Science Foundation · I-Corps · $50K · posted 2026-08-20
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 · 92 → 112 → 184 → 97 → 32 new companies 2022 → 2026 · 91% aliveYC S26: 2 in this cluster, 1% of the batch (was 1% in X26) (F26 is still forming: 21 listed)Since February, of 118 YC companies here: 0 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
- Software subscription
- 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
- Deep tech: ML, hardware, bio
- Go-to-market
- Partners and channels
- Moat
- Distribution moat
- Geography
- Global from day one
- Regulation
- Unregulated
- Vibe
- Hot space
Listed under
An idea sits in its own sector and in any sector its text clearly touches.
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Fictional company written 2026-08-26 from MarkosWeb data; the companies, grants and numbers around it are real and tracked. Treat the idea as a research prompt, not a plan.