The start-up vilisto was founded at the Technical University of Hamburg (TU Hamburg) and develops a digital heat management solution based on thermostats with integrated presence detection, learning algorithms and room climate sensors. With a crowdfunding campaign, the sales team is now to be strengthened and the marketing measures expanded – the targeted 1.5 million was collected within a very short time.
Christoph Berger’s business idea came about while he was studying energy technology at the Technical University of Hamburg (TU Hamburg): he wrote a project thesis in his Master’s degree that involved making predictions of room temperatures in unknown rooms and buildings. In doing so, he worked with algorithms that take outdoor temperature and solar radiation into account. In 2014, he saw a sign on campus: “Want to start up? Come on by!” advertised the TU Hamburg Startup Dock, which had just been created and is now a beyourpilot partner. For Christoph, the simple sign was a timely signal: the concept of his scientific work gave rise to a product idea that was put through its paces by advisors from the Startup Dock. Together with Christian Brase and Lasse Stehnken, Christoph then founded the startup vilisto, whose current mission is a nationwide introduction of digital heat management for a climate-neutral building stock 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 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
The vilisto team, which now has 34 members, works in interdisciplinary groups to further expand the company’s success. And this is where a crowdfunding campaign is supposed to help: “Our innovative approach enables us to contribute to a world in which all people are mindful of their environment and only use 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 need and thus save up to 32 per cent heating energy,” the founder advertised his project. The campaign is intended to create the necessary economic framework conditions and thus finance the further growth of the company. Specifically, the company wants to strengthen its sales team and expand its marketing activities in a targeted manner. In this way, vilisto wants to become better known nationally and internationally, thus making the technology accessible to more people and helping to save more energy. Over the term of the loan, vilisto aims to multiply the previous savings of CO2 emissions by a factor of 200 to more than 200,000 tonnes of CO2. Symbolically speaking, investors should in future come across a building in their vicinity in which vilisto’s intelligent technology is being applied. In addition, further capacities in project management are to be built up, the core technology further developed and the rental business model expanded. In this way, the startup wants to contribute to the heat transition with its sensor-based thermostats.
Investors should receive an interest rate of 6.00 per cent per year for a term of five years with their investment of 250 euros or more. 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 insane success leaves us speechless. We are overwhelmed, grateful and incredibly proud. But what makes us most happy is that the huge support shows that we are not alone on our way to a climate-neutral building stock. Knowing that we have a great community behind us that believes in us and our mission is a huge motivation,” vilisto announced gratefully, and the team wants to really pop the corks today.
Further information on crowdfunding can be found here.
Further information on the founding history of vilisto can be found here.
