Swedish startup Aira, which provides home owners with heat pumps, has secured €150m in equity from existing investors Altor, Vargas, Kinnevik, Lingotto and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund Temasek.
Aira, which was founded in 2023 by Vargas, the investment vehicle behind bankrupt battery-maker Northvolt, had previously raised €200m in debt and €145m in equity. It has operations in the UK, Germany and Italy.
The Stockholm-based company is part of a cohort of European companies aiming to supply consumers with domestic energy tech, such as heat pumps or solar panels, as they search for cheaper alternatives to gas power. Competitors include German startups 1Komma5 and Enpal.
Aira says its new funds will be used to invest in an R&D centre in Sweden and to expand the production facility of its factory in Warsaw, Poland.
“It empowers us to double down on our mission to take Europe off gas,” says Aira CEO Peter Prem, who took over as CEO in May this year.
According to research from the European Union, in 2021, residential space heating accounted for 18% of the bloc’s emissions. Aira says its heat pumps could help households reduce their CO2 emissions by more than 75%.
Aira says it has a sales run-rate of €200m annually and now employs 1,200 people.
Read the orginal article: https://sifted.eu/articles/aira-e150m-heat-pump-rollout/
