Recurve raises $8M from Lowe's, others (San Francisco)

Recurve, the home energy efficiency contractor and software company, has raised $8 million in a series B round of financing that includes home improvement chain Lowe's Companies Inc. as a first-time investor.

San Francisco-based Recurve designs software to manage energy efficiency audits and make them more efficient for contractors. The company will use the new round of financing to build out the sales and infrastructure to take its software product national.

“We’ve created essentially TurboTax for energy audits,” said CEO Pratap Mukherjee.

He said most energy efficiency auditors spend several hours gathering data at a home and then several more crunching numbers to deliver a presentations to homeowners on where they can find savings. But with Recurve’s software product, “You can enter the data on the computer and before you even leave the home can present results and pricing. And you’ve eliminated the five hours afterward (of crunching numbers) and are talking to the customer when they’re most excited about the project.”

Recurve said it has a pipeline of 200 customers including energy efficiency auditors, heating and air conditioner installers, solar installers, architects and other businesses that want to branch into energy efficiency audits that it’s working to sign up for its software-as-a-service product.

Read more in the San Francisco Business Times.