Runwise, a provider of building heat management solutions, raised $19 million in a Series A funding round led by Fifth Wall.
Other investors Rudin Management, SOJA Ventures (The Swig Family / Halstead / Brown Harris Stevens), The Strykers of Friedman Management and MCJ Collective, Derive Ventures, Helium-3, Silence VC, The Cannon Project as well as Waterman Ventures and existing investors Initialized Capital, Notation Capital, Susa Ventures and NextView Ventures, also participated in the round.
Runwise formerly known as Heat Watch is an end-to-end boiler and heating system management platform. The company combines a proprietary heat computer and sensor network, and machine learning systems, to reduce fuel consumption by an average of 20-25%.
Last year, the company saw on average a 20.1% reduction in fossil fuel emissions with buildings retrofitted with Runwise’s technology. According to Runwise, currently, their technology is installed in over 4,000 buildings with almost 400 customers.
This investment will allow Runwise to continue expanding its operations and technology to buildings throughout the country, increasing building efficiency, lowering costs, and ultimately reducing fossil fuel emissions.
“There is an aging building infrastructure crisis in the US. 45% of carbon emissions in most cities come from inefficient building operations, and almost all of these buildings are running on antiquated control infrastructure designed in the 1970s.” said Jeff Carleton, CEO of Runwise.
“The vast majority of the US’s 12 million buildings are running on outdated control infrastructure, resulting in the majority of the country’s carbon emissions. We are so excited to work with Fifth Wall and their incredible base of commercial real estate partners to help upgrade the nation’s building control infrastructure at scale and lead the world in making the US the world’s most climate friendly place to live and work,” comments Mike Cook, Co-founder & Chief Growth Officer.
Energy efficiency is seen as a way to improve work environments and act as a source of job creation alongside helping companies achieve their net-zero targets.
Smarter energy use helps to reduce primary energy demand and accelerate the uptake of more efficient technologies and practices. Research by the IEA suggests energy efficiency will add as much as $18 trillion to global GDP by 2035 and an estimated 40% reduction in energy-related emissions by 2040.
Earlier this year, GridPoint, a building energy management, and optimization technology provider, closed a $75 million strategic capital raise led by the Sustainable Investing Group within Goldman Sachs Asset Management (Goldman Sachs), with participation from Shell Ventures.
According to Mercom’s 9M And Q3 2022 Funding and M&A Report for Storage, Grid & Efficiency. VC funding for Energy Efficiency companies in 9M 2022 was up by $269 million compared to the $5 million raised in 9M 2021.
