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We are very pleased to be joined by Zsuzsa Mayer from EcoSync, a startup coming out of the University of Oxford.
Who would be surprised that the University of great minds and ideas has produced another excellent solution? EcoSync has three co-founders and nine developers and continues to grow rapidly. We've managed to chat with Zsuzsa whilst EcoSync is in the middle of their first fundraising round.
This solution is classic, it’s admirable, and it’s very necessary for large organisations.
Can you tell us the story of how you got EcoSync to this point?
Ecosync started as a hobby at the University of Oxford. Most large institutes have a carbon emission reduction target, and our University is no exception; it wants a 30%-decrease by 2030.
They started the Carbon Innovation Programme that invited academics and students to invent technologies for the reduction of the carbon footprint. Our team included the Facilities Manager from the Geography Department, 2 MSc students from the Climate Change Institute, and I come from an engineering background. After the assessment of the buildings, we concluded that the heating system had the biggest share of responsibility for the carbon emission. We realized that the heart of the solution was the integration of the room booking, heating control and hardware systems. We invited MBA students from the Saïd Business School, who contributed to the calculations for the costs of this integration.
Luckily for us, this was at the time when The University of Oxford opened the Oxford Foundry, an accelerator for startups like us. 220 applicants had tried to enter the programme but only 9 of us were accepted. The programme guaranteed that we would keep the IP, it offered us mentors, provided an office space, and all gave us all the perks that an innovative startup would need. We used the months spent at the Foundry to develop both core technologies - user interfaces, internet of things, machine learning - and the business. Thanks to this amazing programme we understand the market, calculated solid financial projections and we are in negotiations with investors.
We also found early bird customers. We have reached the point that we are ready for investment. We have everything that they need.
What was the problem that inspired the EcoSync solution?
Essentially, ‘Stop heating empty rooms’. We are working at the University of Oxford, addressing the fact that 39% of all carbon dioxide emissions globally are coming from buildings, which is more than all of the vehicles and transport combined. Buildings actually account for 78,000 tonnes of carbon emissions per year.
We found that 70% of rooms being heated were, in fact, empty, so 30% of the energy was being wasted. This is a common problem for educational institutions, hospitals, office buildings, government buildings and hotels.
With 70% of the rooms empty, we had to find a way to separate the rooms in use and only heat them. So, we developed a cloud-based platform that can synchronise existing building technologies with room booking systems. For some private rooms, that had no occupancy detection technology, like private offices, we installed some hardware.
Tell me about the fundraising process?
Until this point, we’ve supported all technology development on money provided by various grants and awards for social enterprise and sustainability. That was just enough to cover the development. We got the free office from the incubator and we are in the lucky position where we’ve reached a minimum viable product without giving up equity. We have the patent and the IP, which is what investors are really looking for. They don’t want to invest in companies where 40% of equity already belongs to someone else.
We have been approached by various angel investors, individuals and organisations, so the information about us is beginning to spread. There are investors in the US, Hungary and more who are keen to invest. We are in discussions with several investors and we’d like to get to December and have the £500k secured, with the product, marketing, and everything fully functioning by 2020 for a rollout.
A lot of people don’t understand the extent of the energy crisis, how would you explain how serious this is?
There are two huge issues. Gas prices are still very cheap, so telling people to change to renewable energy is tricky, I spent 10 years developing new biofuels, but I have to admit, they’re way too expensive.
Another huge challenge is the behaviour. Persuading consumers to change is extremely difficult. We’ve found a way to develop new technology that meets the behaviour of people and increases their comfort and satisfaction, instead of trying to change their behaviours to suit our technology. We offer energy savings, and businesses really like that. I think energy saving technology is easier to implement than replacing traditional energy sources.
Who benefits the most from EcoSync?
We are really aiming to increase the awareness of EcoSync to Facilities managers, who can reduce the carbon footprint of their buildings. The increased comfort level of building users is a byproduct, and because of that, we may change our pricing model, which is currently based purely on energy savings. We want to factor in satisfaction from end users.
Where do you see EcoSync in 5 years?
We need to work with room booking software providers who are interested in integrating some kind of sustainability measure into their products. If we could partner with them we could partner with thousands of buildings all around the world.
What advice would you give to other sustainability entrepreneurs who want to start a business or project of their own?
You don't need to do everything by yourself!
Starting a new business feels like you have to learn several new professions; the legal bits, the accounting bits, sales, marketing etc. If you want to do all by yourself you waste time - instead of learning these from scratch, focus on your expertise and build a strong team that will assist you with their existing skillsets.
You will need to learn the basics - obviously - but let the experts do the rest.
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