Sion based Urbio was rewarded with the Herbert and Audrey Rosenfield Prize of CHF 10’000 at the first Swiss Accelerators’ Showcase held online last Thursday. The EPFL Valais spin-off developed a software that helps key actors of energy transition plan and design the most efficient technologies to heat, cool and electrify buildings.
Founded in January 2020, Urbio is transforming the way energy technologies and infrastructure in cities are planned – with the clear goal to accelerate the energy transition. Their generative design software combines the power of computers and AI with the expertise and local knowledge of engineers to automatically generate thousands of optimized plans, in only a fraction of the time required with traditional approaches.
Energy providers and energy consulting companies specify their goals in an advanced yet user-friendly interface. The software then provides them with plans containing all the geo-referenced information required to achieve those goals, such as choice and sizing of energy technologies, renovation measures for buildings, or heating network design. Liberated from manual trial-and-error induced by current solutions (spreadsheets, GIS dashboards…), engineers can filter, improve and select in minutes the best outcomes that meet their needs.
The idea for Urbio originated from two facts: the built environment is currently the leading source of carbon emissions, while the sector is still among the least digitized, leading to slow and costly processes, which are not compatible with the achievement of the Paris Agreement objectives. Joined by Nicolas Sommer to develop the business aspects of the startup in 2020, the software idea emerged from the combined works of Nils Schüler and Sébastien Cajot at EPFL, in the lab of Prof. François Maréchal, focused on sustainable urban energy systems.
Commercial phase to begin imminently
Contacted by Startupticker.ch, Urbio’s CEO and cofounder Sébastien Cajot explains that several commercial pilot projects are already being led with clients in Switzerland, and will consolidate the commercial version to be released soon. The startup which raised so far over CHF 0.5M from innovation grants has ambitious plans for the next months: closing a seed round to allow it to grow its team, further improve the software and start commercializing Urbio in Switzerland and Europe.
(ES)
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