How This Startup Plans to Turn Millions of Homes Into a Virtual Power Plant

Jan de Vries · 2026-08-24

A London-based energy management startup just raised a fresh $5 million. But this isn't just another funding story. Boldr has its sights set on something bigger—much bigger. They're not just selling smart thermostats. They're trying to rewire how we think about power itself. The $5 million pre-Series A round, led by Unconventional Ventures, will fuel their push into North America. It'll also help them develop their contractor software and broaden their reach into both residential and commercial systems. This follows a hotly oversubscribed $3.2 million Seed round they closed in 2025. A whole roster of investors like Ada Ventures, Tetrad Ventures, and Techstars are betting on their vision. ### A Different Approach to a Huge Problem Most smart home companies go straight to the consumer. Boldr took a left turn. They realized that to make a real dent in energy infrastructure, you need to work with the people who are already in our walls and basements: the HVAC contractors. "The next power plant won't be one building," says Madi Ablyazov, Boldr's CEO and co-founder. "It will be millions of homes working together. But you don't get there through a consumer app alone. You get there through the contractors... Our job is to give them the technology to make that future possible." It's a clever pivot. Instead of building a brand-new sales channel, they're empowering the existing network that installs and maintains the gear we all rely on. ### Riding a Massive European Funding Wave Boldr's raise is part of a much larger trend. European investment in building tech—energy management, heating, cooling, and grid flexibility—is absolutely surging in 2026. We're talking big money flowing into companies tackling similar challenges: - **Axle Energy** (London) raised $25 million to connect heat pumps and EVs to electricity markets. - **GALVANY** (Berlin) secured $12 million for its heat-pump platform. - **Companion.energy** (Ghent) landed $9.3 million for enterprise energy management. - **metiundo** grabbed $47 million for smart metering in buildings. - **Capalo AI** (Helsinki) got $13 million to operate virtual power plants. Throw in rounds for battery optimization, green tech, and more, and you're looking at over $185 million invested in this space just this year. It's clear where the smart money thinks the future is headed. ### The Big Picture: A Smarter, More Flexible Grid So, what's the endgame? Boldr isn't just making a better thermostat. Their long-term ambition is to create a connected network inside homes and buildings. Think heating and cooling systems, batteries, EV chargers, and solar panels all talking to each other. This network could then adjust its electricity use based on what the grid needs—acting as a massive, distributed battery. Alexis Horowitz-Burdick, a Partner at lead investor Unconventional Ventures, put it well: "Boldr is attacking one of the most important infrastructure challenges of the next decade: how to add flexible capacity to the grid quickly, affordably and at massive scale." ### The Secret Weapon: The Universal Thermostat Their flagship product right now is the Universal Thermostat. It's designed specifically for the contractor, not the homeowner. It's hardware-agnostic and uses a clever wireless setup. A control module talks to a subbase by the equipment, which means no new wiring. That's a huge deal for installers. Boldr claims this can save a business up to $500 in labor costs per installation. Every installed unit also feeds data back to Boldr's cloud, giving contractors remote insights and control they've never had before. Founded in 2022 by Ablyazov, Toma Paro, and Matheus Marotzke, Boldr is still young. But their strategy of enabling the tradespeople—the unsung heroes of our energy system—might just be the key to unlocking a cleaner, more resilient grid. It's a future built not from the top down, but from the millions of homes we already live in.