The startup vilisto was founded at Hamburg University of Technology (TU Hamburg) and is developing a digital heat management solution based on thermostats with integrated presence detection, learning algorithms and indoor climate sensors. A crowdfunding campaign is now to be used to strengthen the sales team and expand the marketing measures – the targeted 1.5 million was raised within a very short space of time.
Christoph Berger’s business idea came about while he was studying energy technology at Hamburg University of Technology (TU Hamburg): he wrote a project in his Master’s degree that involved predicting room temperatures in unknown rooms and buildings. He worked with algorithms that take into account the outside temperature and solar radiation. In 2014, he saw a sign on campus: “Want to start up? Come by!” advertising the newly established TU Hamburg Startup Dock, which is now called Startup Port @TUHH. For Christoph, the simple sign was a sign at the right time: a product idea emerged from the concept of his scientific work, which was put through its paces in terms of the business idea by consultants from the Startup Dock. Together with Christian Brase and Lasse Stehnken, Christoph founded the start-up vilisto, whose mission today is to introduce digital heat management for climate-neutral buildings in Germany and many other countries. According to the company, more than 9,500 devices have been installed in over 100 buildings to date, which are said to have saved more than 1,200 tons of CO2 emissions to date.
The vilisto team, which now consists of 34 people, works in interdisciplinary groups to further expand the company’s success. And this is where a crowdfunding campaign should help: “Our innovative approach enables us to contribute to a world in which everyone is mindful of their environment and only uses as much energy as they need for their well-being. To this end, we have developed fully automated and self-learning radiator thermostats that make it possible to control room temperatures in these buildings according to demand and thus save up to 32 percent heating energy,” said the founder, promoting his project. The campaign is intended to create the necessary economic framework conditions and thus finance the company’s further growth. Specifically, the company wants to strengthen its sales team and further expand its marketing measures in a targeted manner. In this way, vilisto wants to become better known nationally and internationally, making the technology accessible to more people and thus helping to save more energy. Over the term of the loan, vilisto aims to multiply the previous savings in CO2 emissions by a factor of 200 to more than 200,000 tons of CO2. Metaphorically speaking, investors will in future come across a building in their vicinity in which vilisto’s intelligent technology is used. In addition, further project management capacities are to be built up, the core technology further developed and the rental business model expanded. In this way, the start-up wants to contribute to the heating transition with its sensor-based thermostats.
Investors should receive an interest rate of 6.00 percent per year on their investment of EUR 250 or more for a term of five years. The total funding amount was limited to 1,500,000 euros and there was also a funding threshold of 1,000,000 euros, which was exceeded within a very short time and after only 11 hours and 37 minutes the targeted money was finally collected in full. “This incredible success leaves us speechless. We are overwhelmed, grateful and incredibly proud. What we are most pleased about, however, is that the great support shows that we are not alone on our path to climate-neutral buildings. Knowing that we have a great community behind us that believes in us and our mission is a huge motivation,” announced vilisto gratefully.
Further information on crowdfunding can be found here.
Further information on the founding history of vilisto can be found here.
