Arbor raises $9M to help people save on home energy

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Americans spend over $230 billion per year on home energy — one of our largest recurring expenses. With energy costs rising at twice the rate of inflation over the past few years, it’s not surprising that over 75% of households report being worried about energy affordability. At the same time, people are starting to electrify their lives, beginning with electric vehicles. Up next: the electrification of fossil fuel home appliances and equipment. Electrification can lower overall costs and greatly reduce the carbon emissions of home energy, which accounts for about 20% of total US emissions, but as energy prices rise and our usage shifts toward electricity, we’re all paying more attention to our electric bills.

There are ways to save on energy, but no one knows about them.

The good news is that there are new ways to save on home energy. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed last year by Congress, offers hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives to adopt cost- and carbon-saving solutions. The bad news is that there’s no easy access to the energy data people need to make informed decisions, let alone a single place to take action on everything from retail energy plans to community solar to a whole array of home energy products and services. Solutions are proliferating, but consumers remain in the dark.

Introducing Arbor: automatically saving people $500 a year on electricity.

We created Arbor to help lower the cost of home energy for people and the planet. To start, we’ve built the first roboadvisor for energy, saving people an estimated $500 in the first year by monitoring how much they pay for energy and helping them automatically switch to a cheaper rate with the same utility.  Today, we’re available to homeowners and renters across 50 million households in deregulated energy markets, which includes most of the Northeast, Midwest, and Texas. In these states, people can choose from hundreds or even thousands of different retail energy rates, but most don’t know that choice exists. Those who do are faced with a confusing set of options and a cumbersome experience. With Arbor, we make it totally free and seamless to find a better rate – you get the same utility bill, and the same power, with a lower price.  

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New funding to help lower the cost of home energy for people and the planet.

Today we’re announcing that we’ve raised $9 million in seed funding led by First Round Capital, with participation from Obvious Ventures, Spring Tide, and strategic angels such as Jon Stein (Co-Founder of Betterment), JD Ross (Co-Founder of Opendoor), Patrick Maloney (Founder of Inspire and Clean Industry Ventures), and Kiran Bhatraju (Co-Founder and CEO of Arcadia), among others. This all-star cast of investors across consumer technology, climate, and energy is a strong endorsement of Arbor’s scalable, consumer climate vision.

After six months of operating under the radar, we’re excited to officially introduce ourselves to the world. We’ve already helped over 10,000 households save an estimated $5 million, and we’re just getting started. Digital products have transformed the consumer experience in most big, regulated categories, from finance to healthcare and insurance. We think energy is next. As we scale our digital energy platform, we see huge opportunities to help people make better energy choices beyond the deregulated markets. For now, head to joinarbor.com to see if we can save your household an average of $500 in less than two minutes.  

With this capital and momentum, we’re building the team to make our vision a reality. If you want to join a rapidly scaling consumer climate tech company, we’re actively hiring across every area of the business. Shoot a note about yourself and why you want to join to careers@joinarbor.com.

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