UK based climate-tech startup Furbnow has secured a £950 000 pre-seed investment, supported by key backers led by SFC Capital, with participation from Norrsken Accelerator, and angel investor Daniel Luhde-Thompson. The round also includes a grant from Innovate UK’s Future Economy Investor Partnership and Nesta and Founders Factory’s Mission Studio.
We’re building Furbnow to be the go-to platform for homeowners who want advice and support as they plan and install low carbon technologies and energy efficiency elements in homes,” says Becky Lane, co-founder and CEO of Furbnow, noting that his team plans a trial with Birmingham City Council’s Route to Net Zero team in early 2024 to improve the energy efficiency of those households ineligible for grant funding..
According Becky over 11.7 million homes sit at the D energy rating or less and energy efficiency has been the poor relation to the low-carbon technologies that grab headlines.
Furbnow helps homeowners plan their home energy improvement roadmap with a Home Energy Plan and supports the project stage with packages priced to suit every customer. The firm is developing new planning methods to provide robust lower-cost options for the domestic market using building information and energy performance data. It will also be working closely with green finance providers and insurers to provide a full end-to-end service.
Matt Seden, Chief Strategy Officer at Nesta, said: “Homeowners are increasingly interested in making their homes more climate-friendly, especially if they can save on their energy bills at the same time and still stay warm all year. Furbnow simplifies a retrofitting process that can otherwise be surprisingly complex and laborious, with end-to-end expert support, making it easy and convenient for homeowners. From its beginnings as a Mission Studio concept, Furbnow is now an innovative tech start-up in its own right, with the potential to help decarbonise a million homes and accelerate the UK’s path to net zero.”
Jason Druker, Portfolio Manager at SFC Capital added: “Retrofitting is a strong investment theme at the moment, and rightly so given its influence on getting us to Net Zero and its potential impact on the cost of living crisis. Nearly half the emissions that cause climate change come from our offices, shops, schools and more critically from our homes. Furbnow can be an influential solution and is at the forefront of making retrofitting more accessible and affordable for households. We are excited to be working with them and supporting their journey.”
Alex Bakir, GP, Norrsken Accelerator said: “Improving the efficiency of our building stock has been the elephant in the room in climate change discussions for decades. For the first time, Furbnow is bringing a holistic approach to the problem space, with a leadership team that knows the sector inside out, and is deeply committed to fixing it.”
More about FurbNow and how it works
Furbnow is a market disruptor on a mission to transform the retrofit industry and its future roadmap aims to include monitoring houses post-retrofit. This enables households to evaluate the building’s performance and build confidence with the wider public as well as supporting homeowners to reduce carbon emissions, save money and create healthier homes, you can check the services they offer on this link.
Furbnow offers a retrofit assessment service that involves an assessor performing an in-depth inspection of your property to find out what changes are needed to make it more energy efficient. As part of the assessment the assessor will talk to you about your plans for the home and any constraints on getting work done. They’ll then perform a Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) inspection, a ventilation inception and may use thermal imaging to assess how energy efficient the property is, and how it can be improved.
If you want to save energy, reduce your bills, and reduce your emissions
but most importantly retain heat to make your house warmer, consider Cavity wall insulation, another service by Furbnow. A cavity wall has a hollow centre between two layers of brick and mortar. The majority of homes in the UK built after the 1920s use cavity walls. The benefits are that the gap between walls reduces the transmission of cold air. So less heat leaves your home. However these walls can be improved by filling that gap with cavity wall insulation.
