A number of years in the past, Selina Tobaccowala’s daughter began leaving post-it notes round the home, telling everybody to “flip off the lights” and such.
Tobaccowala had simply offered her final startup, Gixo, to OpenFit and was in search of a brand new problem. “I noticed the children and thought, ‘Let me see if there’s one thing there on the sustainability and local weather facet,’” she instructed TechCrunch. “There needed to be one thing greater than like turning our lights off.”
And not using a background in local weather science or {hardware} engineering, she wasn’t certain the place to start out. So Tobaccowala turned to one thing she knew nicely: surveys.
“Given my love of surveys, I surveyed a ton — a ton — of shoppers,” stated Tobaccowala, who was president and CTO of SurveyMonkey.
What she discovered was that individuals have been struggling to determine decrease their utility payments.
“After we talked to shoppers, we heard the identical factor over and over: They get that e-mail that claims, ‘Hey, you spend extra money than your neighbors,’” she stated. “They have been kind of caught with what to do about it.”
Tobaccowala co-founded HomeBoost to assist individuals conduct their very own residence power assessments. The corporate was a part of the Startup Battlefield 200 at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.
Techcrunch occasion
Boston, MA
|
June 23, 2026
HomeBoost’s evaluation course of begins by mailing clients a BoostBox, a small package that features an infrared digicam, a blacklight and a hyperlink to an app that takes clients via the method. As individuals stroll round their houses, the infrared digicam exhibits them the place chilly (or scorching) air is seeping into their houses; the blacklight tells individuals which lights might be upgraded.
Utilizing information from the scans, the app then mechanically generates a report which suggests essentially the most value efficient upgrades, together with rebates based mostly on the place the individual lives.
In lots of elements of the nation, utilities supply the same service. Utilities, that are incentivized to cut back finish customers’ power use, usually work with power auditors to survey individuals’s houses to determine methods to trim their consumption. However the high quality of these companies may be very uneven, Tobaccowala stated.
“We talked to a bunch of shoppers who’d gotten residence power assessments performed, and there this sense that was like ‘all they did was attempt to promote me up an upgraded HVAC,’” she stated.
The HomeBoost app is cheaper and quicker than an auditor, and it helps individuals really feel extra accountable for the method, Tobaccowala stated.
HomeBoost prices clients $99, which is a few quarter the price of a standard, in-person evaluation. It is usually working with utilities, which cowl some or all the value for purchasers. The startup has signed offers with Central Hudson, Omaha Public Energy District, and extra lately Avista. Omaha Energy, for instance, pays for all however $19 of the associated fee, whereas Central Hudson will cowl all the value if householders take a look at the BoostBox from a public library.
However not each house owner needs to finish the survey course of themselves, and never each auditor is a pushy salesperson. Devoted auditors can spend between two and 10 hours surveying houses, collating information, and constructing reviews, Tobaccowala stated. For that, HomeBoost has developed a model of its app for professionals, permitting them to serve extra clients.
The corporate can be testing a function that may hyperlink householders with contractors who can comply with via on the upgrades outlined within the report. For contractors, it’s one other supply of latest enterprise, and it permits them to get data on a challenge earlier than even setting foot inside a house.
By bringing shoppers, utilities, and contractors collectively, Tobaccowalla hopes that HomeBoost can in the end ship on the local weather entrance, too. “It’s a really distinctive scenario the place everyone’s aligned to truly decrease the utility invoice, which within the web result’s enchancment on the local weather,” she stated.
