- High-Tech Gründerfonds, Swisscom Ventures and Rainmaking Impact have invested CHF 1.5 million into Swiss climate tech start-up viboo.
- The oversubscribed seed round reflects strong investor interest and confidence in viboo’s innovative energy-saving solutions for buildings.
- viboo will use the funding to scale up the commercialization of its proven Predictive Control as a Service platform, capitalizing on the upcoming heating season to make a significant impact in decarbonizing buildings.
ZÜRICH, SWITZERLAND – viboo, a software company making buildings more energy efficient, has successfully closed a CHF 1.5 million seed funding round with investments from High-Tech Gründerfonds, Swisscom Ventures and Rainmaking Impact. The round was oversubscribed, reflecting strong investor confidence and interest in the company’s potential to decarbonize buildings, and will be used to scale up the commercialization of the technology.
Buildings account for 40% of Europe’s energy consumption, with existing buildings offering significant untapped potential for energy savings. A building’s heating and cooling systems are typically controlled via room thermostats or thermostatic valves. However, even smart thermostats often cannot make optimal decisions to control a room’s temperature as underlying control principles rely on heuristics or simple feedback principles. Integrating measurement and forecasting data and combining it with Artificial Intelligence is crucial to make a building truly energy efficient.
viboo has developed a Predictive Control as a Service platform (PCaaS), empowering smart thermostats of partnering manufacturers to fully deliver on their potential. Initially, the platform’s algorithms learn the thermal behavior of a building. viboo’s technology can then predict the building’s temperature evolution, considering factors including the weather forecast and occupant preferences, and subsequently optimize the energy input into reach room. By allowing smart thermostats to fully play to their strengths, viboo can lower a building’s energy consumption.
This new investment will be used to scale up the commercialization of viboo’s technology in time for the upcoming heating season with a focus on light commercial buildings, especially those located in cities and municipalities. The Swiss climate tech start-up has already worked with industry-leading partners such as Danfoss, ABB, Netatmo, and Bouygues to fully validate its solution. During the last heating period impressive energy savings of 20-40% were achieved.
Felix Bünning, Founder and CEO of viboo, expressed his excitement at closing the seed round: “We showed during the last heating period that our technology works, can deliver a real impact and that we’re able to attract partners from the entire value chain. With the next heating season coming up, we’re ready to scale up and fully tap into the light commercial buildings. Our solution helps those buildings to save energy and offers a quick return on investment. We’re grateful for the support from our investors and look forward to tackling the big issue of decarbonizing buildings together with them.”
viboo is rooted in world-leading research at Empa and ETH Zurich, as well as other outstanding building automation labs at RWTH Aachen and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. The company and their founders have won several prestigious awards, including a BRIDGE fellowship, all Venture Kick stages, the Innobooster by Gebert Rüf Stiftung, the Swiss GreenTech Startup Battle, Empa Innovation Award and an ETH Medal.
Gregor Haidl, Senior Investment Manager at High-Tech Gründerfonds, said: “viboo’s decentralized approach is very promising. Their platform and algorithms are potentially game-changing for existing and even older buildings. The results from the last heating season show that viboo is ready to make a significant impact on the decarbonizing of buildings.”
Res Witschi, Delegate for Sustainable Digitization at Swisscom, commented, “We’re proud to invest in viboo. Swiss climate tech companies are known for the quality of their products and solutions and the impact that they can have. viboo has a strong team which combines an entrepreneurial mindset with strong technical foundations.”
Alex Farcet, Co-founder at Rainmaking Impact, added, “Digital technologies will be crucial to lower emissions in the building sector, and viboo’s innovation can be implemented quickly and at scale to boost energy efficiency. Our investor syndicate is excited to support viboo’s journey and their impact.”