Crown’s 2021 Year in Review
No doubt, 2021 was an unpredictable and challenging year for businesses of all kinds, all over the world. But through it all, Crown Electrokinetics never wavered from its mission to make windows more efficient and decarbonize the building sector.
Let’s recap some of Crown’s major milestones from the past year:
January: Crown successfully became a publicly traded company. We uplisted to the NASDAQ under the ticker “CRKN” in a public offering worth more than $21.5 million.
August: Field tests of our Smart Window Inserts showed our technology can deliver major cost savings to office building owners and tenants. Data from the tests – which took place in a Los Angeles office building with single-pane windows – indicated a 26% reduction in HVAC-related energy usage.
September: Crown tripled its headcount while also increasing the firm’s talent density with a series of strategic hires from Amazon, Tesla, HP and other firms. Mindy Hamlin, HP’s former Director of Technology, Development, Infrastructure and Operations, was appointed as Crown’s Vice President of Engineering.
September: We signed our first commercial agreement with proptech-focused real estate holding company MetroSpaces. The deal calls for the installation of Crown’s Smart Window Inserts in a 70,000 square foot office building in Houston, Texas.
October: Crown acquired 10 additional patents from IBM Corporation to bolster its intellectual property portfolio in the smart glass technology area. The IBM transactions, conducted over the blockchain-enabled IPwe platform, gave Crown a total of 34 patents and applications, offering coverage in key global markets.
December: Crown signed a commercial agreement with Los Angeles-based Hudson Pacific Properties, a media- and tech-focused real estate investment trust. The agreement calls for the installation of Smart Window Inserts in HPP office buildings. The agreement deepens our existing relationship with HPP, which has been a strategic investor in Crown since mid-2020.
As we have noted before, 2021 was the biggest year ever in climate change. Technology firms, investors and policymakers are mobilizing in unprecedented ways to put the world on a path to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
And this year, Crown made it clear that our people and our products are ready to play a major role in that transition, by cutting energy costs and carbon emissions in the building sector – which accounts for almost 40% of the world’s energy-related carbon emissions.
Here’s the best part, however: We’re just getting started. See you in 2022!
