Monaire, a company that utilizes AI to curb waste and emissions from small commercial buildings, announced $3.5 million in seed funding. Construct Capital led the funding round, with Workshop Ventures participating and strategic individual investments from Steve Fredette (Toast’s president and co-founder) and Tom Kuo (A-Street’s co-founder and chairman of the board at Mighty Earth).
The company’s maintenance and energy management platform detects, diagnoses, and services HVAC and refrigeration (HVAC/R) systems in small commercial buildings. Utilizing a network of wireless sensors, Monaire’s AI-enabled software monitors performance in a building’s HVAC/R systems, automatically preventing energy waste and detecting problems. After issues are found, Monaire immediately diagnoses the problem and automatically dispatches an available technician to make repairs.
There are more than 5.6 million small commercial buildings, such as strip malls, gas stations, restaurants, and other small retail businesses, comprising 94% of the commercial buildings in the US. Even though buildings are part of our daily lives, they’re expensive to maintain and have older, less efficient HVAC/R systems more likely to need repair, costing building owners an average of $17,000 per year per building in lost revenue, repair costs, and food waste.
Small commercial building HVAC/R systems are a considerable source of carbon emissions, estimated to release 7.5 GT of CO2e in wasted emissions through 2050. Monaire aims to prevent 1 GT of that waste by creating new efficiencies, reducing system runtimes, preventing refrigerant leaks and food spoilage, upgrading HVAC/R systems, and reducing inefficient operations. It will also help build and run a more sustainable, efficient grid.
The funding will be used to continue developing its proprietary sensors and AI technology and expand into additional markets across the United States.
KEY QUOTES:
“Upgrading and efficiently managing HVAC/R systems requires a lot of money and skilled technicians, both of which are often out of reach for the owners of small commercial buildings. Monaire eases that pain by modernizing a building’s existing HVAC/R system using our advanced wireless sensors, smart controllers, and AI monitoring. Instead of wasting food, energy, and money while waiting for emergency fixes, Monaire instantly makes buildings more efficient while automatically detecting and fixing problems before they fail.”
– Rahul Subramany, Co-founder of Monaire
“Old-school analog systems dominate critical HVAC/R technology used in small commercial operations. Tech-driven yet economical solutions that show immediate results and impact are needed to help revitalize and modernize small commercial businesses. Monaire’s pricing and maintenance coupled with easy-to-install, low-tech hardware brings a really elegant solution to this market.”
– Dayna Grayson, partner at Construct Capital
“Heating, cooling, and refrigeration systems are a major contributor to climate change. Monaire’s initiatives have the potential to significantly mitigate climate change impacts by reducing 1 GT of CO2e emissions from small commercial HVAC/R systems – the equivalent of removing 217 million cars from the road for one year.”
– Chad Laurans, partner at Workshop Ventures and co-founder and chairman of SimpliSafe
