Thalo Labs announced an investment from Suffolk Technologies, the venture capital affiliate of Suffolk Construction, along with a strategic partnership between the companies. The investment reflects Suffolk Technologies’ belief that the HVAC industry is shifting toward more intelligent and proactive service models powered by AI and real-time diagnostics.
The New York-based company has developed a hardware and AI platform designed to help HVAC contractors improve installation accuracy, identify failures before customers notice problems, and increase service profitability. The platform delivers real-time diagnostics and service intelligence for HVAC systems, helping technicians identify issues earlier, reduce unnecessary truck rolls, and resolve problems more efficiently.
According to the company, HVAC service providers are facing significant operational challenges driven by a shortage of more than 110,000 HVAC technicians in the U.S., aging infrastructure, increasing system complexity, and rising performance expectations. Most HVAC systems still operate without robust real-time diagnostics, leaving technicians to discover issues only after performance declines or equipment failures occur.
Thalo Labs said its platform addresses this gap by providing technicians with real-time alerts, root-cause diagnostics, and guided remediation tools directly in the field. The company’s system is designed to transform thousands of HVAC units across customer sites into a centrally monitored fleet, enabling service providers to gain visibility into equipment health, prioritize dispatching, and identify recurring failure patterns.
The company was founded by Dr. Brendan Hermalyn, who previously led the camera program at Waymo and the autonomous hardware program at GM Cruise following his scientific work at NASA. Thalo Labs applies sensing and AI expertise from aerospace and autonomous systems to the built environment.
The company’s platform combines hardware sensors, physics-based AI models, and generative AI service support to detect issues such as refrigerant leaks, compressor overheating, voltage anomalies, and improper operating modes in real time. Thalo Labs said its Sidekick sensor platform is designed to be installed non-invasively during standard maintenance visits.
As part of the partnership, Suffolk Construction is piloting Thalo Labs’ technology at its headquarters through the deployment of Sidekick sensors. The companies said the pilot reflects the broader move toward AI-enabled building operations and predictive maintenance.
Suffolk Technologies said the investment aligns with its broader strategy of supporting technologies that improve productivity, sustainability, and asset performance across the built environment. The firm believes Thalo Labs has the potential to become a foundational intelligence layer for HVAC service operations.
KEY QUOTES:
“HVAC service is one of the most operationally complex businesses in the built environment. Contractors have been running it with tools that haven’t really changed in decades. Thalo takes advantage of the amazing recent advances in hardware, connectivity, and algorithms to bring the magic of real-time equipment management to every system for the first time. This gives service leaders a single source of truth for the health of their entire fleet, and can change the economics of their business. Suffolk Technologies understands what it takes to operate at scale in the built environment, and that makes them the perfect partner to help us build this category.”
Dr. Brendan Hermalyn, Founder of Thalo Labs
“What if every HVAC technician had instant access to every service manual, every warranty agreement, every troubleshooting guide, and the detailed failure patterns of thousands of real-world HVAC systems? Thalo Labs is making that possible by pairing generative AI with proprietary, easily deployed hardware that creates a new layer of equipment-level data. That data unlocks cost-efficient predictive maintenance and turns complex system behavior into actionable intelligence for technicians in the field. We believe Thalo can become the intelligence layer for HVAC service across the built environment, and we are thrilled to partner with Brendan and the team.”
Jonson Berman, Vice President of Investment at Suffolk Technologies
