Quilt rides heat pump heat wave with hefty $33M Series A
Heat pumps are having a bit of a moment. They outsold gas furnaces for the second year running, and homeowners who install them are eligible for thousands in incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act. But theyâre not growing quite as fast as they perhaps could be. Getting consumers to adopt new technology isnât always easy, especially when itâs something as fundamental as heating and cooling.
Consumer hesitancy has been on the top of Paul Lambertâs mind as he navigates bringing Quiltâs new heat pump to market.
âNo matter where someone is coming from today, what situation theyâre in, we want them to feel like theyâre upgrading,â Lambert, co-founder and CEO of the startup, told TechCrunch.
Heat pumps are just different enough from existing heating and air conditioning setups to give many consumers pause. Some of it is the design: The most common installations use mini-splits on the inside of the house, which are basically big plastic appliances that hang high on the wall. Not exactly something you might proudly show off to your friends.
Quilt says its heat pump will address those concerns, promising a sleeker design that can be installed in more places around a room than competitorsâ offerings. The company has only released a teaser image so far. It looks promising, but weâll have to wait until it unveils the finished product on May 15 to pass final judgment. The company engineered the core of the system in-house, though itâs working with a manufacturing partner to produce the units.
Design isnât the only challenge facing traditional heat pumps. Many customers have been turned off by the way they operate. In most homes, a single mini-split (known as a âheadâ) handles both heating and cooling for a single room. Each head gets its own thermostat or remote, which means if someone wants to adjust the temperature for the whole house, they need to visit every room.
Instead, Quilt has centralized the controls for its system. Each room still gets a head, which also has a way of sensing the temperature, but users only need one physical control to adjust set points throughout their home. As an alternative, they can also use Quiltâs app.
âIf you have that thermostat in your bedroom and you want to make sure you turned off the living room or you want to change the temperature in the childrenâs room or whatever, you just swipe over to that room and do it from the thermostat,â Lambert said. If tweaking individual rooms isnât your cup of tea, âyou can also set a temperature for the entire house from the thermostat.â
Quiltâs control setup hints at a level of integration that most consumer heat pumps donât offer.
âItâs kind of like a mesh network for Wi-Fi, where theyâre all working together to heat and cool the house,â Matt Knoll, co-founder and CTO, told TechCrunch. âBut then they have all the control in each space, too.â
In addition to the usual thermostat, each Quilt head has a millimeter-wave occupancy sensor. Most heat pumps include passive infrared sensors, which tend to send false vacancy signals when someone isnât moving, like when theyâre watching TV or sleeping. Quiltâs sensor doesnât suffer from that problem. The companyâs software uses data from these sensors to map the room to determine when people are present, but Lambert points out that it doesnât create an actual image.
âWeâre not putting a camera in anyoneâs homes. These are just signals on a graph that when interpreted just says thereâs a person here or there isnât,â he said. âIt gives us a lot of confidence around when rooms are empty or not, which means we can not waste energy heating and cooling empty rooms.â
In anticipation of its forthcoming product introduction, Quilt has raised a $33 million Series A round led by Energy Impact Partners and Galvanize Climate Solutions with participation by Garage Capital, Gradient Ventures, Incite Ventures, MCJ Collective, Lowercarbon Capital, and âProperty Brotherâ Drew Scott. Itâs a hefty raise given that it announced a $9 million seed round less than a year ago.
The startup plans to use the fresh capital to expand its marketing efforts and installer capacity. Quiltâs heat pumps will roll out in a few regions initially before expanding further. âItâs kind of like weâve built this core R&D organization, now weâre turning into a real company,â Lambert said.