EIT Climate-KIC supported Boldr secures $1.2M seed round in bid to become the “Apple of home energy”

Climate tech start-up Boldr announced a $1.2M seed round, with participation from inclusive investor Ada Ventures, to help them empower more homes to manage their energy consumption efficiently. The UK-headquartered EIT Climate-KIC portfolio company produces a suite of easy-to-install, affordable, energy-saving and connected products backed by an energy- management platform. 

Increased demand and stricter regulations are driving the move towards home electrification in millions of households in the US and Europe. This presents huge infrastructural challenges to energy grids, particularly given the increasing reliance on renewable energy sources. 

Boldr is making the home a vital component of the distributed energy landscape by retrofitting home heating and cooling. Through enabling connected home electrification and supporting grid stability, the start-up is accelerating the green energy transition. 

The software is manufacturer agnostic, allowing customers to manage heating, ventilation, and air conditioning products regardless of the make. Customers will eventually be able to manage home energy in devices such as electric vehicles, solar panels and home batteries through the Boldr energy-management platform.  

The $1.2M seed round will bolster the tech and sales team to support expansion into more European and North American households. This will accelerate Boldr’s global mission to help households reduce energy consumption and improve stability of the green energy grid. 

“With the raised capital, we are launching new products and building an energy operating system to make households a solution to the stability of the green energy grids,” says Madi Ablyazov, CEO and co-founder of Boldr. 

Boldr’s investors and advisors include KC McCreery, ex-Head of Manufacturing at Tesla, and Lewis Hong, previously Head Manufacturing Engineer at SpaceX. FP Solutions VC, a firm specialised in early-stage hardware start-ups, was the first investor on board. Other VCs backing the start-up include Techstars, Focal and Norrsken. Fiona Howarth, CEO of Octopus Electric Vehicles, Simon Franks of LOVEFiLM and experienced Brazilian investor Fersen Lambranho are among the Angel investors. 

“We think Boldr could be the Apple of home energy,” says Lewis Hong at FP Solutions VC. “Not only is Boldr already profitable as it’s selling both physical products and software, but it’s also a really sticky solution because it works with existing heating systems.” 

Founders Madi Ablyazov and Toma Paro participated in the EIT Climate-KIC Baltics & Slovakia ClimAccelerator programme in 2022. The start-up has since brought on EIT Climate-KIC as a strategic investor and joins our portfolio of nearly 100 climate start-ups.