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Energy efficiency company Ecovent — which just attracted $6.9 million from investors — makes an intelligent home zoning system that allows for control of each room and added comfort. Why is this company attracting investors and what are investors looking for?
In this podcast interview, Dipul Patel, CEO and co-founder of Ecovent, says that investors are interested in building science that can provide long-term energy savings.
In addition, they’re interested in products that people can understand and care about — in this case, comfort in the home. Companies can create a great product — but users need to understand it.
“If you’re a doctor and invented the X-ray, people wouldn’t understand how to use it,” he says.
Ecovent provides comfort through its room-by-room control of heating and cooling. Battery-operated air vents have sensors that understand how air is moving, he explains.
The system is installed in about 20 homes, and the company has compiled three or four case studies that have shown 20 to 50 percent savings, he notes. Ecovent is working with laboratories to validate this savings.
The company attracted $6.9 million, led by Emerson Climate Technologies, and has more than $1 million in pre-orders of its smart vent system, according to a press release. “The vents open and close to send the right amount of hot or cool air to rooms that need it and shuts down air to rooms that don’t need it,” says the company’s website. Homeowners can install the vents themselves with a screwdriver. It works wirelessly and runs on four AA batteries.
Earlier in the year, the company was named Automation Product of the Year at CES 2015, the international consumer electronics show.
“Ecovent’s advanced system of wireless vents and sensors intelligently diagnose the factors impacting room temperature and automatically adjust airflow into each room to achieve the perfectly desired temperature,” says the company press release.
Homeowners can control the temperature of each room with an app.
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