Boldr has raised EUR 4.2 million, about $5 million, to sell grid flexibility through the people who physically install heating systems — HVAC contractors — rather than through another consumer app.

The London company disclosed the round on Aug 24, 2026. It is a pre-Series A of EUR 4.2 million ($5 million) led by Unconventional Ventures, with Ada Ventures, Tetrad Ventures, Davidovs Venture Collective, Roxbury Asset Management, Inclimo Climate Tech Fund, Prosegur, Techstars, S20 Fund and PropelX participating. No valuation was disclosed. Boldr was founded in 2022 by Madi Ablyazov, Toma Paro and Matheus Marotzke, and last raised a EUR 2.7 million ($3.2 million) seed in 2025.

What the company does

Boldr runs an energy management platform that connects residential and commercial heating and cooling systems, batteries, EV chargers and solar installations to the grid for demand flexibility. Its entry point is the Universal Thermostat, a hardware-agnostic climate controller whose wireless architecture removes the need to run new thermostat wiring — a change the company says saves roughly $500 in labour per installation.

The commercial model is deliberately B2B. Rather than selling directly to households, Boldr sells through the contractors already in the building, and has signed nationwide US distribution agreements with Daikin and Bosch-owned Source 1. The next power plant will not be one building, said Ablyazov, the chief executive and co-founder. It will be millions of homes working together — but you do not get there through a consumer app alone.

The numbers behind the round

The $5 million follows a $3.2 million seed, putting disclosed funding at roughly $8.2 million since 2022. Boldr has not published install counts, contractor numbers or revenue, so the per-installation labour saving is the only unit-level figure on the table. Tech Funding News reports that the company intends to follow this with a Series A of $20 million to $50 million as it expands the platform across the United States.

One discrepancy is worth flagging: deal databases list the raise as a Series A extension, while both outlets covering it describe a pre-Series A. Money in and lead investor match; the label does not.

Why the timing matters

The smart thermostat category has been settled for a decade, with Google Nest and Honeywell owning the shelf. Boldr is not contesting that shelf. It is contesting the van — the contractor deciding what to fit when a system is replaced, who has no incentive to spend an extra hour pulling wire for a device that earns them nothing afterwards. Sitting inside the distribution networks of Daikin and Source 1 makes that a channel play rather than a brand fight.

It also lands in a year when European energy tech capital has concentrated on flexibility and trading rather than hardware, with at least EUR 156 million across peers including Entrix, metiundo and Axle Energy. Boldr proceeds go to North American expansion, a contractor-facing SaaS layer, and extending control to a broader set of heating and cooling equipment. Whether the contractor channel converts into a dispatchable fleet is the question the next round will be priced on.

Source

EU-Startups — "Smart thermostat maker Boldr raises EUR 4.2 million to grow connected heating and cooling platform"