A few years ago, Selina Tobaccowala’s daughter started leaving post-it notes around the house, telling everyone to “turn off the lights” and such.
Tobaccowala had just sold her last startup, Gixo, to OpenFit and was looking for a new challenge. “I saw the kids and thought, ‘Let me see if there’s something there on the sustainability and climate side,’” she told News. “There had to be something more than like turning our lights off.”
Without a background in climate science or hardware engineering, she wasn’t sure where to start. So Tobaccowala turned to something she knew well: surveys.
“Given my love of surveys, I surveyed a ton — a ton — of customers,” said Tobaccowala, who used to be president and CTO of SurveyMonkey.
What she found was that people were struggling to figure out how to lower their utility bills.
“When we talked to consumers, we heard the same thing over and over again: They get that email that says, ‘Hey, you spend more money than your neighbors,’” she said. “They were sort of stuck with what to do about it.”
Tobaccowala co-founded HomeBoost to help people conduct their own home energy assessments. The company was part of the Startup Battlefield 200 at News Disrupt 2025.
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HomeBoost’s assessment process begins by mailing customers a BoostBox, a small kit that includes an infrared camera, a blacklight and a link to an app that takes customers through the process. As people walk around their homes, the infrared camera shows them where cold (or hot) air is seeping into their homes; the blacklight tells people which lights could be upgraded.
Using data from the scans, the app then automatically generates a report which suggests the most cost effective upgrades, including rebates based on where the person lives.
In many parts of the country, utilities offer a similar service. Utilities, which are incentivized to reduce end users’ energy use, often work with energy auditors to survey people’s homes to identify ways to trim their consumption. But the quality of those services can be very uneven, Tobaccowala said.
“We talked to a bunch of consumers who’d gotten home energy assessments done, and there this feeling that was like ‘all they did was try to sell me up an upgraded HVAC,’” she said.
The HomeBoost app is cheaper and faster than an auditor, and it helps people feel more in control of the process, Tobaccowala said.
HomeBoost charges customers $99, which is about a quarter the cost of a traditional, in-person assessment. It is also working with utilities, which cover some or all of the cost for customers. The startup has signed deals with Central Hudson, Omaha Public Power District, and more recently Avista. Omaha Power, for example, pays for all but $19 of the cost, while Central Hudson will cover the entire cost if homeowners check out the BoostBox from a public library.
But not every homeowner wants to complete the survey process themselves, and not every auditor is a pushy salesperson. Dedicated auditors can spend between two and 10 hours surveying homes, collating data, and building reports, Tobaccowala said. For that, HomeBoost has developed a version of its app for professionals, allowing them to serve more customers.
The company is also testing a feature that will link homeowners with contractors who can follow through on the upgrades outlined in the report. For contractors, it’s another source of new business, and it allows them to get information on a project before even setting foot inside a home.
By bringing consumers, utilities, and contractors together, Tobaccowalla hopes that HomeBoost can ultimately deliver on the climate front, too. “It’s a very unique situation where everybody’s aligned to actually lower the utility bill, which in the net result is improvement on the climate,” she said.
