“America’s path to a net-zero carbon economy runs straight through our buildings,” U.S Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, April 9, 2021.
Last year, residential and commercial buildings consumed 40% of all energy used in the United States. That percentage is staggering before you even consider how that energy is used — or, more accurately, not used. According to Lawrence Berkley National Labs,“Typical [HVAC] ductwork systems, both residential and commercial, lose 25-40 percent of heating and cooling energy; even newly installed systems experience 10-30 percent leakage.”
So our buildings consume 40% of our energy — only to then lose 10-40% of it? That kind of waste is why the path to net-zero carbon so clearly runs through the built environment. As Berkely points out, “If every home in the United States sealed its leaky HVAC ducts, the nation would save $5 billion annually in energy costs.”
We need to properly seal building ducts and walls in order to avoid this waste and save on energy costs, and that’s possible with the right technology. We’re excited to announce our investment in Aeroseal, a company that combines sealant technology with software to secure HVAC systems and prevent leaks.
Since 2010, Aeroseal has sealed more than 200,000 buildings in 27 countries. The Aeroseal system uses its software to analyze a building and then distribute its eco-friendly, non-toxic formula to seal ducts in just a few hours. While the software ensures the process is precise and efficient, the water-based sealant formula makes it effective. Contractors using the Aeroseal system have sealed ducts and walls in homes, hospitals, schools, hotels, and offices across the world. And this has already started making a measurable impact. The thousands of buildings using Aeroseal so far have realized nearly $2 billion in energy savings.
Here at Building Ventures, we have experience working closely with more than 100 businesses as investors, mentors, leaders, and even entrepreneurs. This experience has taught us that each business needs the right mix of team, solution, and market in order to succeed. It’s also taught us how important the right leader is. A startup CEO needs the vision, resourcefulness, and resilience to guide a company to grow and succeed. We believe Aeroseal Founder & CEO Amit Gupta has these qualities. Even better, our own family of Building Ventures portfolio CEOs agrees. Salman Ahmad, Kathy Hannun, Deepinder Singh, and Christian Weeks have worked with Amit and endorse his leadership at Aeroseal and his vision for the company’s future. We’re excited for Amit and Aeroseal to join the Building Ventures family, and we are certain that Amit and his team of “Aeromates” are ready to meet the challenge and opportunity of this moment.
This moment is not only Aeroseal’s inflection point but perhaps the built world’s, as well. As society starts to engage with more meaningful ways to manage the increasing pressure of growing greenhouse gas emissions on our planet, Aeroseal offers a proven solution delivered by an accomplished team and led by this visionary entrepreneur who is ready to deliver at the next level and help move us all down the path to a better built world. As Amit himself explains, “Our technologies could take out 1 gigaton of CO2 from the world. That is huge by any stretch of the imagination. There are very few companies around the world — and very few technologies — which can have that large of an impact.”
As investors we feel very fortunate to back a company of this scale just starting to ramp up its global growth, which can have such a direct and meaningful impact. This type of opportunity comes along just once in the lifetime of constructing a portfolio of investments. That’s why we are especially thrilled that our investment in Aeroseal is the capstone investment for our Building Ventures debut fund, The Built Environment Innovation Fund. Our mission with this fund has been to accelerate innovation for a better built world, and our investment in Aeroseal will certainly further this. Aeroseal is a growth stage company, and with more capital to deploy, it can accelerate the adoption of its solution to meet this market need at this unique moment in time. That brings Amit and his team closer to realizing his vision, and it brings us all closer to seeing the impact of Aeroseal’s technology on our built environment.
Even the most talented teams can leverage the experience of value-adding thought partner investors who have been on many similar journeys. We at Building Ventures are thrilled to join our friends at Breakthrough Energy Ventures for our fourth co-investment and to invest alongside the utility industry-backed Energy Impact Partners team for the first time in Aeroseal’s $22 million Series A investment round. We are excited to help grow Aeroseal into a cornerstone company of net-zero energy building for both new construction and retrofits. #ForABetterBuiltWorld
