Frequently Asked Questions

What is The Venture competition?

The Venture is a global competition for social enterprises—companies like ours who do social or environmental good through business. They are giving away $1,000,000 to help the best ideas succeed. In January, we won the Gulf regional competition and on July 14, we’ll compete in the finals in New York City with 26 other contestants. $250,000 will be given away during this 5-week popular voting period and the remaining $750,000 will be awarded to the few most deserving winners, as determined by the judges.

Why takasolutions?

Did you know that buildings (homes, offices, towers, hotels, etc.) account for 40% of the world’s energy consumption? And the vast majority are badly inefficient, wasting up to 50% of that energy unnecessarily?

We are an energy savings company that applies smart engineering, technology and financing to help buildings and individuals save energy, money and climate-changing carbon emissions. We work with building owners and managers to greatly improve performance and energy efficiency in existing buildings. Our innovative business model allows us to do our work at no capital cost to customers, paid instead by a share of the savings we generate during a multi-year contract. After the contract, the customer keeps 100% of savings and all the improvements we have made to their building.

What are the benefits?

Customers can start saving immediately, even with no available capital. Our interests are aligned—the more we help them save, the more we profit. In addition to reduced energy use and costs, building conditions are improved, systems and equipment operate better and longer before replacement, indoor air quality, health and comfort for tenants are improved and the building’s market value goes up. Customers get our services, building upgrades, financial savings and other benefits all for less than what they used to pay in energy bills alone. Sound too good to be true? It’s not. We’re doing it for more than a dozen buildings right now, and growing.

What will taka do with the money?

We already help save energy by improving the buildings themselves, but that’s only a part of the equation. For maximum savings, we need to help the people inside the buildings save energy too. So we will develop an app to help them better understand their energy use and motivate and educate them to use less and save more. Think “FitBit” for energy savings. We will start small, testing and improving it with occupants in current taka buildings, then expand to wider audiences as we’re able.

What are we asking? How can you help?

A popular voting period was held May 9–June 13 to divide $250,000 among the 27 finalists based on number of votes. We want to thank everyone who voted for us each week for those five weeks. You helped us raise over $3,000 to begin building our app for occupants. That’s a great way to start. Now, it’s on to the finals where we’ll pitch for a larger share of The Venture’s $1Million to fund the whole thing.

Even though the popular voting period is over, we still appreciate all the likes, shares and conversation on our social media channels: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Also, we’re always looking for:

• New projects to optimize energy efficiency in existing buildings
• Opportunities to raise awareness about Taka Solutions and energy efficiency in general
• Introductions to people we might be able to help and vice versa

If you can help us in any of these areas, please don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know.

Thank you for your support!