Energy efficiency is certainly no new concept. Since the OPEC oil embargo of the early 1970’s, industrial economies and multi-national corporations around the globe have spent trillions on new green energy solutions as a hedge against reliance on fossil fuels while attempting to solve energy waste with technology.
In the coming decade buildings may consume up to 50% of the world’s total energy production. Also, buildings are responsible for up to 40% of all greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Today, a global industry has emerged to make buildings smarter and more efficient in real-time to solve real world problems of reducing energy waste and corresponding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Technology is critical to driving cost-effective solutions backed by big data and analytics to meet these challenges head on.
Kontrol Energy Corp. (
CSE.KNR,
OTC: KNRLF,
Forum)
is an undiscovered technology leader in the global smart buildings industry and they are making big waves with major customers wins.
How? Simply put, Kontrol Energy makes buildings smarter in real-time. Smarter buildings are more profitable, valuable, and sustainable. Led by a management team with over 60 years of experience, a previous exit, and about 45% insider ownership, this is a company with interests in SaaS, Cloud, IOT and ESG…and much more.
Now, the smart money is realizing the potential in this space as an opportunity for companies to provide turnkey solutions and technologies to large energy consumers who want to get control over their energy costs and also reduce their GHG emissions.
Stockhouse Editorial recently caught up with company CEO Paul Ghezzi for an exclusive interview to discuss a myriad of timely, topical, and newsworthy topics that always keeps our technology investor audience tuned into.
SH: Q: To start off, Paul, can you update our investor audience and your Kontrol Energy shareholders on any new company developments, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic?
PG: The period during COVID has been very interesting for Kontrol on many levels. As an essential service provider, we have been open and servicing our customers during the pandemic. Our recurring revenue business has been very stable but, as some short-term volatility, we have seen large automation projects put on hold due to site access limitations. However, and perhaps most importantly our customers are moving towards more reliance on technology on how they operate their buildings and that directly benefits Kontrol over the long term.
SH: For our investor audience that might be new to Kontrol Energy, can you tell us a bit about yourself and the history of the company?
PG: I am CPA by training and have spent most of my career in mergers and acquisitions. Our management team has over 60 years of industry experience. Kontrol was incubated from the clear opportunity that the smart buildings market was consolidating globally, and we could be a leader in disruption both through technology and acquisitions. We began our journey with less than $1 million of revenue and last year we closed 2019 with approximately 14.5 Million in revenue. As management we are both shareholders and operators and we run the business with the goal of creating long term shareholder value.
SH: And onto the big news, your recent closing of the second tranche of non-brokered private placement which now puts your total raise close to $2 million to date. How have you achieved this?
PG:
We just recently closed a convertible debenture financing of $2 million. The primary purpose of the raise is to complete our next acquisition which includes recurring revenues.
SH: Clearly investors have taken note. Your stock price has soared, nearly tripling since early April. Now, institutional and retail investors are getting on board. How so?
PG: I think like many small caps we were oversold at the peak of the Covid crisis in March. We have been making our way back to pre-Covid levels in our common share price. In addition, the market is starting to wake up to our recurring revenue platform which has been growing and our execution.
SH: It’s a fact – North American buildings waste up to 30% of the energy they consume due to lack of intelligence and technology. How does Kontrol Energy tackle the core problem of this massive, systematic energy inefficiency?
PG: Through our SmartMax, SmartSite and SmartSuite technology platform we are able to quickly and efficiently bring buildings on-line so that we can monitor their energy in real-time. With more than 30 Billion data records now recorded and monitored in the cloud we can provide improvements in building operations and energy management which provide the customer with a payback of approximately 2 years. In addition, we can monitor and assess building emissions as required.
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SH: Can you tell our audience about how you are delivering innovation to the smart energy space?
PG: Our technology disruption is that we can provide our solutions at a price point below our competitors. Also, our technology can speak with the majority of legacy automation systems installed over the past thirty-years. This means we can integrate new customer portfolios with major intrusion and barriers.
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SH: In your corporate deck you say Kontrol Energy is the “Undiscovered and Undervalued Smart Buildings Leader.” How does the company back up this bold claim?
PG: I think its fair to say we are undervalued relative to our industry peers based on industry metrics. Part of this is we are simply not well known. We are working on changing that through some significant customer wins like Toyota and Beyond Meat in 2019 and also sharing our story with investors.
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SH:From the investors perspective, can you tell us about the operational set-up of the Company and how Kontrol Energy Corp plans to position itself as a global industry leader?
PG: Every smart building has a value to Kontrol. When we bring on a new customer that customer drives software revenue, service revenue and automation project revenues. In the smart buildings industry, a global leader is loosely defined as a company which has more than 1,000 buildings connected on their platform. We started our journey at less than 20 buildings and by the end of 2020 we are anticipating being at approximately 250 buildings. As we scale into buildings, we also continue to develop our technology for more applications.
SH: And finally, Paul, what can you tell our investor audience regarding the current valuation of your stock and why it’s still such a good value buy right now?
PG: I prefer to focus on long-term value and being aligned with shareholders. Over time the market will reward our recurring revenue growth and innovation and we are in the early stages of our growth story. We have a large insider position and low common share count which reflects the fact that we view ourselves as owners and operators. We are committed to building value and growing the business to reward our stakeholders.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.