Climate-KIC start-up and smart home vendor tado° raises 20 million EUR to fuel US expansion

Munich-based Climate-KIC start-up tado°, a global leader in smart home climate control, has closed a 20 million EUR round of funding, bringing the company’s total to 50 million Euro in funding overall.

The financing comes from international investor INVEN CAPITAL, a venture capital arm of the ČEZ GROUP, a multinational energy conglomerate. tado° will use the capital to drive continued global expansion – especially in the US market, where the company recently listed its product range at Amazon, Best Buy and Home Depot, and secured a number of connected home partnerships, including AT&T Digital Life.

Smart climate control

Filling a major hole in the market where Nest and other whole-home thermostat solutions fall short, tado° offers smart climate control for the millions of people with remote-controlled heating and cooling units. The tado° Smart Thermostat and Smart AC Control products bring these heating and AC systems online, turning any smartphone into a geo-aware remote control. As well as this, tado° automatically detects a user’s proximity to their residence and adjusts the temperature accordingly – so it’s comfortable when you get there, but conserves energy by 30-40 percent when you’re away. Integration with local weather forecasts and adapting algorithms can add to the savings and convenience. Users can also adjust the temperature using their phone from any location inside or outside the home.

'It’s expected that a whopping 32 million smart thermostats will have been installed worldwide by 2020, and there’s no reason why those without central heating or AC should be left out in the cold. The fact is, millions of window, portable, and wall units use infrared remote controls that just don’t work with Nest and others like it,' said Christian Deilmann, Co-Founder and CEO of tado° in a press release. The new round of financing will be instrumental in fueling the rapid expansion of tado° in the US market.

'tado° has impressed us with their proven historical growth as well as their service-oriented strategy and INVEN CAPITAL will support their further international expansion, said Petr Míkovec, Managing Director of INVEN CAPITAL in a press release.

Climate-KIC Accelerator

The success of tado° is also that of the Climate-KIC Accelerator which has helped accelerator over 500 start-ups across Europe since 2010. As a former Climate-KIC Accelerator participant, tado° has benefited widely from Climate-KIC. 'Climate-KIC not only supported us with their financial funding programmes but they have also offered us a great platform to exchange knowledge,' commented tado° managing director, Leopold von Bismarck.