Energy IoT Startup Smart Joules Raises $4.1 Mn In Series A

Energy-efficiency-as-a-service startup Smart Joules has raised $4.1 Mn in its Series A funding round from various investors, namely ADB Ventures, the venture arm of Asian Development Bank (ADB), Sangam Ventures, Max I. Limited, cKinetics Accelerator, Dabur family’s Saket Burman and six other angel investors from India and the US. 

Smart Joules claims to offer capital expenditure-free retrofits for commercial and industrial facilities by improving the overall design of energy-intensive systems like cooling, heating, compressed air and steam. The company claims that its DeJoule technology platform utilises various sensors and IoT controllers to track and control equipment and optimise overall facility performance in real-time using data. This technology platform allows Smart Joules to guarantee its clients 15% energy savings, the startup claimed in its press statement. 

Founded in 2014, by Arjun P Gupta, Ujjal Majumdar and Sidhartha Gupta, Smart Joules will deploy the invested funds to strengthen its energy management team, enhance its digital technology platform, expand its presence across hospitals and scale its cooling-as-a-service offering for commercial buildings and industries with heavy air conditioning loads such as pharmaceuticals and data centres.

“Smart Joules has proven the energy-efficiency-as-a-service business model in India,” said Daniel Hersson, senior fund manager at ADB Ventures. “We believe the company can become a category leader in building energy efficiency space in the region.” 

“We have seen the Smart Joules founders build an amazing climate positive start-up from the ground up and excited to be part of the next phase of their journey where they are taking their innovative Internet of Things-enabled, data-analytics driven platform to transform the energy efficiency landscape in India by making it simple and profitable for businesses to invest into,” said Sangam Ventures’ founder Karthik Chandrasekhar. 

Meanwhile, ADB Ventures has also invested in another Indian startup this week, namely, New Delhi-based electric vehicles (EV) startup Euler. The company bagged $2.6 Mn from ADB to close its $9.5 Mn Series A round. 

Besides Smart Joules, startups involved in emerging technology spaces such as clean energy and EVs, drones, blockchain, AI and machine learning, among other things, are expected to play an important role in India’s smart cities of the future. Some of these startups are independent power producer of renewable energy ReNew Power, Gurgaon-based Internet of Things (IoT) focused enterprise Zenatix, which was acquired by Hero Electronix in 2018 and Bengaluru-based smart building solution provider 75F.