Runwise: Real Estate Startup Heating Up This Summer
Runwise Raises $55M to Tackle Building Energy Waste with Smart Tech
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As brutally high temperatures grip the nation, the demand for efficient cooling in commercial real estate is soaring. Landlords face a delicate balance: meeting tenant needs while controlling escalating energy costs. A New York-based tech company, Runwise, is offering a solution with it’s innovative hardware and software platform designed to eliminate energy waste in large buildings.
The Problem with Customary Building Systems
Most large building systems operate with limited intelligence. Centralized temperature settings often fail to account for variations within a building, leading to discomfort for occupants – too cold in some areas, too warm in others. This inefficiency isn’t just a matter of comfort; its a significant drain on resources and a contributor to carbon emissions.
“We’re trying to hit these climate goals, yet right in our literal building we’re throwing money away every time you run a boiler when it doesn’t need to run, you’re wasting money and you’re producing carbon emissions unnecessarily that really make nobody comfortable,” explains Jeff Carleton, co-founder and CEO of Runwise.
How Runwise is revolutionizing Building Management
Runwise combines future weather algorithms with a network of wireless temperature sensors. These sensors communicate with a central Runwise control system that analyzes the data and optimizes building operations for maximum efficiency.
Instead of relying on a single temperature reading for an entire building, Runwise deploys 20 to 25 sensors in a 100,000-square-foot space. The system averages these inputs, factoring in user settings and predicted weather patterns, to determine the optimal boiler operation schedule. This granular approach ensures that energy is only used when and where it’s needed.
The company’s technology is currently installed in over 10,000 buildings across 10 states, serving approximately 1,000 customers. Major real estate players utilizing Runwise include Related, Equity Residential, FirstService Residential, MTA, Port Authority, National Grid, Rudin, LeFrak, UDR, Douglas Elliman and Akam. Runwise reports collective energy cost savings exceeding $100 million to date.
Funding and Future Plans
Runwise recently secured $55 million in Series B funding, led by Menlo Ventures, bringing its total funding to $79 million. Additional investors include Nuveen Real Estate, Munich Re Ventures, MassMutual Ventures, multiplier Capital, Soma Capital and Fifth Wall.
Carleton states the funding will be used to expand the company’s reach nationwide and to further integrate artificial intelligence into its systems. “It’s only going to become more and more ingrained in what we build, as we collect data from more and more buildings and build more advanced models on how to run them more efficiently,” he said. “We plan to use AI to continuously make our algorithms more efficient.”
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