Blue Frontier, a Boca Raton, FL-based sustainable air conditioning technology company, raised $20M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures, 2150 Urban Tech Sustainability Fund and VoLo Earth Ventures. In connection with the completion of the funding round, Phillippe Larochelle, Partner at Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Christian Hernandez Gallardo, co-Founder and Partner at 2150, and Kareem Dabbagh, co-Founder and Managing Partner at VoLo Earth Ventures, which also led Blue Frontier’s seed funding round, have been appointed to the Blue Frontier Board of Directors. Brian Mayers, of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, will serve as a board observer.
The company intends to use the funds to bring its product to market.
Led by CEO Dr. Daniel Betts, Blue Frontier is the developer of patented solutions for space conditioning, low-cost energy storage, and smart IoT controls to aggregate its air conditioners as distributed energy resources for use as a Utility-Managed Virtual Power Plant. The company’s first product addresses the 5 through 10-ton commercial packaged rooftop air conditioner market with a drop-in replacement offered under an HVAC-as-a-Service subscription-based business model.
The technology was originally developed at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), with Blue Frontier obtaining rights through an exclusive license in 2018. Continued development was undertaken in conjunction with NREL and the Wells Fargo’s Innovation Incubator (IN2) program and prototypes were tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Pilot installations in commercial buildings are scheduled for the second half of 2022. Pre-commercial Alpha unit release is expected in 2023, configured to replace commercial building Rooftop Units (RTUs).
FinSMEs
29/07/2022