MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — It started in a townhouse after their graduation from West Virginia University and is now a global sustainability software company. Iconic Air has been acquired by Tokyo-based Asuene, Inc. to lead their Asuene USA operation.
On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town,” Iconic Air co-founder and CEO James Carnes reflected back on their beginnings at Iconic EDU, a STEM education platform, to being included in the business incubator on the WVU campus, Vantage Ventures, in Morgantown.
Vantage Ventures has a 13-week accelerator program to help WV-based startups test the market for their product, build a prototype, and produce the final product in order to prepare to pitch investors.
“We wouldn’t have been able to get to this point if it wasn’t for all of our awesome investors, customers, and team along the way,” Carnes said. “One of those being the Country Roads Angel Network—one of our earliest believers and really helped us navigate the early stages of the business.”
Iconic Air has developed software that enables energy companies to track emissions in the same manner as financial performance. The software can provide information from operations that can help direct business strategy and manage inputs.
“All of the high-level aspects of the business—to be able to tell how you’re performing from a financial perspective—we do the same thing only from a sustainability perspective, so we track a lot of their equipment in the field to understand where they’re at from an emissions and operations standpoint.”
“This acquisition marks a pivotal step in advancing our U.S. presence,” said Kohei Nishiwada, founder & CEO of ASUENE Inc. “With Iconic Air’s proven technology and strong customer base, we can now deliver integrated solutions addressing both CO2 and methane emissions—empowering companies across sectors to accelerate their green transformation.”
“We’ve really focused on building the best sustainability within the energy sector,” Carnes said. “That means helping oil and gas companies and utility companies to better track emissions, very similar to the way they track financials.”
Iconic Air started in the garage of a townhouse before taking advantage of facilities offered by Vantage Ventures. Over the last five years they have grown to about 10 employees with annual revenues of about $2 million while keeping the business lean.
“We’ve built a really great business without some of the bloat that typically comes with some of the start-ups, and I think that was really attractive to them,” Carnes said. “I’m really proud of the team and product that we have.”
Carnes said the acquisition will allow them access to the global business platform Asuene has developed. For Asuene, the partnership will accelerate North American growth and strengthen the technology foundation for data-driven decarbonization.
“Now by joining forces and becoming a part of the broader Asuene group of companies, we’ll be able to sell our product and technologies to companies across the world,” Carnes said.