Hara: Cool Software For a Warm Planet
At the stroke of midnight, Hara Software emerged from stealth mode after 18 months of incubation at the headquarters of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Pronounced "ha-RAH," or "hurrah" to a Bostonian, Hara is the Sanskrit word for "fresh green." This is very fitting given the company's focus on helping organizations track, manage, and optimize the use of energy, fossil fuels, carbon, water, waste, and other resources.
This morning's announcement includes the launch of the Hara Environmental and Energy Management (EEM) suite. EEM is a software-as-a-service offering that includes modules for aggregating data on resource consumption and spend, helping companies plan new initiatives such as reducing their carbon footprint, assisting in the execution of environmental and energy programs, and best practices for continuous improvement.
There is also a content play. In the press release, Hara's CEO Amit Chatterjee described how his firm intends to work with customers to "write the encyclopedia of environmental efficiency." This reference material will include a guide to managing "organizational metabMcKinsey,olism," or how energy is consumed and expended by an enterprise.
What makes Hara different is its focus on end-to-end energy and emission management. Most competitors have focused exclusively on emissions, emission offsetting, and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) sustainability reporting.
In mid-April, Dr. Stephen Stokes and I flew to California to visit the Hara executive team at Kleiner's offices in Sand Hill Road. During our visit, Mr. Chatterjee discussed some of the work underway at the dozen customer accounts and demonstrated the new software. When asked for his impression based on the demos, Stephen said, "Cool software for a warm planet." That said it all.
Hara has a strong management team, with veterans from Agile Software, McKinsey & Company, Oracle, SAP, and TIBCO. This is complemented by a strong board of directors and an advisory board. The latter includes four academics with backgrounds in various environmental disciplines.
The EEM market promises to attract a lot of attention. Last month SAP announced the acquisition of Clear Standard, a provider of software for carbon management and sustainability. Meanwhile, former Siebel Systems founders Tom Siebel and Pat House have started C3 which is still under the covers. The only publicly available information is from various blog posts. There are other firms, too, like Carbon Networks vying to be one of the early leaders.
This market has already begun to attract attention from other enterprise apps vendors and providers of environmental, health, and safety software. Look for lots of alliance announcements over the next year.
Hara's early customers include The Coca-Cola Company and the city of Palo Alto. In today's edition of The New York Times Coca-Cola is cited as using Hara's software to track greenhouse emissions at 1,000 sites around the globe.
In newly emerging software categories, it's critical for vendors to stay tightly focused, especially around a handful of core verticals. I think the early adopters will be drawn from consumer-facing verticals, including food and beverage, packaged goods, electronics, energy companies, and public sector. If I were advising Mr. Chatterjee, I would urge him to pick one or two verticals and build critical mass.
At this point, the market is still in the early cocoon stage. Based on history, it seems less likely that a homogenous market will emerge where every enterprise needs the same functionality. Instead, as the market develops, each vertical is likely to have its own unique requirements that will likely be based on its usage and demand for specific resources.
