Slater invests $125K in eNow

JEFF FLATH, president and CEO of eNow, shows off a demo truck for the company’s lightweight, plastic, solar panel. The Warwick company received $125,000 from the Slater Technology Fund as part of a $1 million Series A round. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT
JEFF FLATH, president and CEO of eNow, shows off a demo truck for the company’s lightweight, plastic, solar panel. The Warwick company received $125,000 from the Slater Technology Fund as part of a $1 million Series A round. / PBN FILE PHOTO/NATALJA KENT

PROVIDENCE – The Slater Technology Fund has invested $125,000 as part of a $1 million Series A round for eNow, a developer of renewable energy solutions for commercial transportation, bringing its total investment in the company to $225,000.
Slater, in a news release on Thursday, said Tamiami Angel Fund II led the round for the Warwick company, which included previous investors.
Founded in 2011, eNow’s proprietary solar panel systems have been proven to significantly improve commercial vehicles’ fuel economy by utilizing solar power to charge auxiliary batteries.
“While most developers are deploying solar to offset grid power, the opportunity eNow spotted, saving hydrocarbon fuel wasted on idling or deployed inefficiently on electric loads, really caught my eye,” Thorne Sparkman, managing director of the Slater Technology Fund, said in a statement. “Jeff [Flath] and his team are shrewdly targeting fleet operators’ salient pain points first, but a micro-grid for the whole vehicle is a big idea. With fuel consumption among heavy-duty vehicles – which is eNow’s core market – expected to rise by 23 percent over the next several years, we believe that the company is poised to make a significant impact on the transportation industry.”

Slater said the market for eNow’s products includes 25 million medium and heavy-duty trucks in operation, as well as 450,000 school buses, 805,000 commercial buses, and millions of light duty vehicles in the United States alone. Walmart, AutoZone and USXpress have already purchased or committed to purchasing the company’s solar systems to optimize the efficiency of their trucking fleets.

Earlier this year, eNow launched a new Solar Photovoltaic Panel system integration for the Dometic Blizzard Turbo auxiliary air conditioner. The combined eNow-Dometic system is the first solar-powered air conditioner for Class 8 sleeper trucks. It allows a typical Class 8 driver to extend run time of the air conditioning, resulting in increased savings on diesel fuel costs and reducing the alternator load.

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