Overview and Team
Ekotrope Inc. is a Cambridge-MA-based company that offers unique software solutions for designing energy-efficient buildings to maximize owners’ investments as well as ensuring energy code compliance in today’s changing construction environment.
Founded in 2010, the inspiration for Ekotrope’s optimization engine grew out of MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Professor Edward F. Crawley’s quest for a way to find the most energy efficient design for a home he was building in 2009. Crawley found there was no way for his architect to easily analyze component tradeoffs to find the best energy and investment combination. The enterprising rocket scientist drew on NASA technology and assembled a select group of industry experts to come up with the Ekotrope solution.
Company founders and executives:
Ziv Rozenblum, Founder and CEO, MIT Sloan graduate, industry executive (HP, ARCHIBUS) with over 14 years of experience in R&D and business capacities. Experience includes defining, building and heading a multimillion solution for managing buildings and energy systems.
Cy Kilbourn, Founder and Manager of Engineering with a background in construction. Certified HERS Rater.
Nick Sisler, Founder and energy modeling, optimization and mechanical engineer. Certified Scrum Master.
Benjamin DeLillo, Founder and Senior Software Architect. Bachelor of Science in Computer science from RIT (2011). Created the first WebGL development library, WebGLU. Has worked on big data visualization and analysis of GIS datasets. Work experience includes a software development internship in iRobot’s military and industrial division.
Board of Directors:
Prof Edward F Crawley, Founder and Chairman, MIT Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, serial entrepreneur (ACX, Bioscale, Carrot, DataXu), board member Orbital Science Corp.
Ziv Rozenblum, Founder and CEO, MIT Sloan graduate, industry executive (HP, ARCHIBUS) with over 14 years of experience in R&D and business capacities. Experience includes defining, building and heading a multimillion solution for managing buildings and energy systems.
Kenneth Lazarus PhD, Board Member, MIT Ph.D., Former CEO of ACX & GM of Cymer, Inc., current CEO of Lilliputian Systems, founding board member of DataXu.
Advisory Board:
Nitzan Shaer is Managing Partner and Co-founder of High Start Group, a firm focused on helping companies create and launch breakthrough products. Before High Start Group, Nitzan founded the Mobile Product Group at Skype. Previously, Nitzan successfully managed the development of three global products in the Mobile and Embedded Division at Microsoft. Nitzan also led venture investments as Entrepreneur in Residence at Flybridge Capital Partners and was Chief Operating Officer and Board Member at Mobivox.
Mike Browne holds a B.S. in Material Science and Engineering from Brown University. He is the founder of Advanced Building Analysis. Mike is a RESNET certified Energy Rater and Provider. Mike is also President and board member of Energy Raters of Massachusetts, Inc., a RESNET accredited HERS Provider that specifically caters to Independent HERS Raters working in Massachusetts.
Mark Vasu is the founder of perCent Inc., a clean web company that is developing a personal energy expense management platform to help people reduce total energy use and spending with personalized measurement and purchase opportunities based on actual expenses. Prior to that, Mark was principal of CMV Marketing, a marketing and sustainability strategy firm. Mark also led marketing and business development for three startup and early stage companies and social enterprises including City Year, ChildrenFirst (Bright Horizons) and Jumpstart. He began his career as a commercial banker specializing in high tech financing. Mark holds a B.A. in Economics from Duke University.
