Harvest’s Smart Thermal Battery Breaks $11M Funding Mark

Breakthrough climate tech makes heat pumps better, enables scale

KENSINGTON, CA, October 19, 2023 – For building decarbonization to succeed at scale, new tech must be clean, cost-competitive, and improve the user experience over fossil fuel incumbents. Harvest Thermal does just that - and its latest round of investors would agree.

“I’m grateful for the confidence these premier climate tech investors have placed in Harvest Thermal.”—Dr. Jane Melia, CEO and Co-founder

Earth Foundry led the just-closed $4 million round which included follow-on investments from MUUS Climate Partners and Starshot Capital, as well as new investment from partners including Portfolia, the world’s largest fund of women investors. Earth Foundry’s Managing Director Sara Chamberlain joins Logan Grizzel, Partner of MUUS Climate Partners as Director on Harvest’s board. Combined with grant funding from the National Science Foundation, the California Energy Commission, and other private investors, the investment in Harvest Thermal totals over $11 million.

The smart thermal battery™ from Harvest Thermal makes heat pumps smarter, more efficient, and cheaper to operate, enabling scale at a time when electrifying homes is an urgent national priority. Recently, 25 governors announced a commitment to install 20 million heat pumps by 2030 to achieve national climate goals. Each Harvest system reduces 55 tons of CO2 throughout its life – as much as you would save by switching to an EV from a gas car.

“We’ve designed our smart thermal battery heating system to have an extraordinary climate impact,” said CEO Jane Melia. “I’m grateful for the confidence these premier climate tech investors have placed in Harvest Thermal. They have given us a runway to diversify our product line, expand into new markets, and reach more customers while making homes sustainable for a more livable future.”

The company’s core product provides space heating and hot water with a single heat pump married to a water battery. The Harvest Pod®, the brains of the system, decouples the operation of the heat pump from household heating needs – and from when CO2 emissions are highest. It runs the heat pump during the day when solar energy is cheap and plentiful and releases stored heat and hot water into the home whenever needed.  

“Harvest Thermal has unlocked the decarbonization potential of heat pumps with its smart thermal battery,” said Earth Foundry’s Sara Chamberlain. “With space heating and hot water comprising nearly two-thirds of home energy use, decarbonizing heating and hot water has the greatest climate impact a household can make.”

“Harvest Thermal is perhaps the most effective solution to address one of the biggest contributors to climate change – the heating and cooling of homes,” said Logan Grizzel, Partner at MUUS Climate Partners. “In one fell swoop, the company can reduce CO2 emissions, increase home comfort, and create significant savings for homeowners. MUUS Climate Partners loves this team and we're proud to now be Harvest Thermal's largest investor.”

"Heat pumps are a vital low-carbon home heating solution," observed Starshot Capital's Sam Levac-Levey. "However, most people need hot showers and heating in the mornings and evenings, risking overloading the grid during peak hours. Harvest Thermal's unique smart thermal battery enables the widespread adoption of heat pumps while protecting energy grids."

Harvest Thermal has achieved wide recognition for its novel climate tech. It won the Consortium of Energy Efficiency’s Integrated Home Competition award and was featured in a  popular science YouTube video on Matt Ferrell’s Undecided channel with over 500,000 views.

ABOUT HARVEST THERMAL

Harvest Thermal is redesigning home heating and hot water for a livable future. Its market-leading thermal battery system cuts carbon emissions by 90% compared to gas furnaces and water heaters and 50% compared to heat pumps without storage. The cloud-connected Harvest Pod leverages software, sensors, and controls to reduce carbon emissions and save an average of 30% on monthly heating bills. It also supports a cleaner, cheaper, and more resilient grid. Founded in 2019, Harvest Thermal has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the California Energy Commission.

For more information, visit www.harvest-thermal.com

ABOUT EARTH FOUNDRY

Earth Foundry is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in transformational clean energy and climate technologies.  For more than a decade, our team has worked closely with founders of hardware, software and materials science innovations, helping them to build and scale successful ventures.

Our established track record in climate tech is underpinned by our specialized platform for sourcing, diligencing, building, and exiting companies in this trillion-dollar industry.  We leverage a vast network of relationships, deep domain expertise, a decade of pattern recognition and a set of proprietary investment frameworks which has avoided more than 9.8 million tons of CO2 emissions.

ABOUT MUUS CLIMATE PARTNERS

MUUS Climate Partners (MCP) invests at the convergence of tech and decarbonization, focusing on technologies that have the most carbon reduction potential. MCP’s diverse and entrepreneurial team members have built new ventures, advanced climate policy and led corporate initiatives around decarbonization. The team’s combined decades of climate leadership and broad network enable MCP to identify and support winning climate software and hardware solutions. To date, MCP has invested in 30 companies across Funds I and II. MCP is an affiliate of MUUS & Company, the private investment firm of serial entrepreneur and Tiger 21 founder Michael Sonnenfeldt. For more information, please visit: www.muusclimate.com.

ABOUT STARSHOT CAPITAL

Starshot Capital supports ambitious founders building gigaton-scale climate solutions to decarbonize massive markets.  Starshot is proud to support founders building high-impact, high-growth businesses: those ambitious enough to change the world and improve the lives of millions of people.

ABOUT PORTFOLIA

Portfolia is the world’s most powerful community of women investors with 1,700+ members in 18 countries and 46 states. We’ve directed over $50M AUM across 14 funds, which have made 158+ investments in Pre-Seed to Pre-IPO companies. Our venture funds let us aggregate our assets to create positive changes in the world. We’re using our experience, knowledge, and influence to invest in and advance innovations for returns and impacts. Learn more about Portfolia’s unique investment model and our game-changing funds, visit our website at http://portfolia.co/