Page 42 - Innovation Delaware 2019

ruled out for a variety of reasons. Simi- larly, no driver is asked to participate in
a campaign if she or he has a conflict of interest or just doesn’t like that company.
Once a match is made, the drivers bring their car into either Carvertise’s facility or to a contract vendor who can wrap cars to fit the model. All driving activity is tracked and reported back to the brand partner on a monthly basis, using a Carvertise app. Drivers must cover a minimum of 900 miles monthly, and “impressions” are calculated based on population and traffic density where they drive. They are regularly paid by direct deposit until the campaign is over. Then their cars are unwrapped with no damage to the automobile.
Through the years, Nagaswami has been able to sign up some of the coun- try’s biggest and best-known businesses — Amazon, Lyft, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Buffalo Wild Wings, Crayola, Sprint, EA Sports and (of course) NASCAR.
New Castle-based AirGreen is testing a revolutionary concept for a low-
cost, yet very efficient air conditioning system. Its CEO, John Hammond, was hired to bring the company through its initial round of funding and to establish it as a fully functioning entity.
“I was here only six weeks when [founder Andrew Mongar] was killed when a tree he was cutting in his yard fell on him,” Hammond says. That was last October, just a few weeks before AirGreen completed its series A round of funding. Although details of the funding round have not been made public, one of the principal investors is local entrepre- neur and businessman Vance Kershner, who founded IT success story LabWare.
“Delaware has been very receptive to what we are working to accomplish, and we’ve been encouraged by the enthusi- asm we have received,” Hammond says.
As a very new company, AirGreen is only just beginning to take advantage of Delaware’s benefits for innovators.
“Our investors have applied for
the Delaware Angel Investor Tax Credit,” says Hammond. “We’ve received some non-monetary help and guidance from the Delaware Prosperity Partnership and look forward to continuing to engage with them, as they do valued work. And we are just getting under way with the University of Delaware Department of Engineering graduate student-industry partnership program.”
The AirGreen product models — there are three in development — control both temperature and humidity, a process currently very inefficient in even modern heating and cooling units. They do this by using a liquid desiccant and external sources of 130 degrees Fahrenheit and
60 degrees Fahrenheit water, an unusu- ally high and thus efficient temperature. Hammond points out that current condi-
MANUFACTURER
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AIRGREEN: BECOMING A