Aquicore was one of a handful of companies that won a $125k Digital DC Tech Fund grant this year, but that was just the tip of the iceberg for the startup. Founder Logan Soya says Aquicore’s energy monitoring products have scooped up large clients like the DC government, MRP Realty, and Smithfield. The market has several players, but Logan says Aquicore has developed low-cost sensors and web-based tools that can be quickly installed (20 days versus several months) and collect a commercial building’s metered and sub-metered energy usage.

He expects to double revenue and head count to about 40 employees next year and has plans to get Aquicore’s first office space. It took only three months to get their system up and running in the DC government’s 400 buildings, and the technology identified $100k in savings the first weeks of deployment with several DC customers.

Commercial office buildings spend $170B a year on energy waste and the market for tech products is $30B to $40B, says Logan, who studied physics and has an MBA from Georgetown. The plan for Aquicore, which raised a seed round earlier this year, is to expand beyond the Mid-Atlantic to national and international customers. It recently won its first international contract with an industrial campus in Mexico.