Spor: Drexel students raising $100K for solar-powered chargers

A trio of Drexel students are raising $100,000 to jumpstart their solar-powered battery charger business.

The Spor charger, the founders say, can soak up power from both sunlight and indoor light, as well as connect with other Spor chargers to speed up the charging capacity or transfer energy between them. It also features a 3D-printed case. Their big vision is to make energy “more accessible and affordable for the global population.”

A $40 Kickstarter donation will get you an early bird order of the charger (the “early early bird” $35 deal has already run out). The team plans to price it at $50.

Based at Drexel’s Baiada Institute business incubator, Spor has already raised $20,000 from angel investors and won $10,000 in a Baiada Institute business competition but it’s turning to crowdfunding to reach a community that’s interested in “supporting projects that help the world,” said cofounder David Hunt. The Kickstarter campaign is also a marketing tool, he said.

Spor’s cofounders are three Drexel seniors who will graduate this month: Hunt, Troy Hudson, both 23, and Jason Browne, 24. Browne won a winter 2012 Lean Startup Machine competition with his idea for Spor (that was when the company was called “Spore”).

They’re joined by CTO Adrian Delphia, a team of engineers at makerspace NextFab Studio and hardware manufacturing firm Dragon Innovation, which helped get Pebble off the ground. Their advisors include NextFab member Tony Sacksteder, who used to run Steadicam‘s R&D facility in Philadelpha, and NextFab woodworking manager John Haggerty.