Business Concept & La Forge alumni startup Urbio raised 2Mio -

Alumni of Business Concept training Western Switzerland spring 2018, the EPFL Spinoff Urbio just released their press release on their seed financing round!

Urbio raises $2M in an oversubscribed pre-seed round - $2M funding will enable Urbio to recruit team members, improve the commercial product and expand commercial activities in the EU - Alex Stöckl, Partner at Wingman Ventures, and Rokas Peciulaitis, Managing Partner at Contrarian Ventures, co-lead the pre-seed round and will join the board of directors - Urban Us followed up their initial investment in the wake of Urbio’s participation in their and MINI’s startup accelerator, URBAN-X. - David Helgason, founder and former CEO of Unity Technologies, also joined the round as angel investor.

The Swiss EPFL spin-off Urbio, developing software to help energy providers plan the energy transition globally, has raised $2M in a pre-seed round co-led by Wingman Ventures and Contrarian Ventures. Urbio accelerates the transition of utilities towards clean energy, with a novel software based on research from world-leading technical university EPFL that reduces ten-fold the time spent on design tasks. Today, customers deal with scattered data sources and manual design processes at the building scale, supported essentially by spreadsheets and fragmented tools. Urbio streamlines design and collaborative processes by generating highly customized proposals for individual buildings or entire cities. In September, Urbio closed a pre-seed round of $2M from Swiss and international investors, with Wingman Ventures and Contrarian Ventures co-leading the round, and co-investments from Urban Us and David Helgason, founder and former CEO of Unity Technologies. Asked about the team, Alex Stöckl from Wingman Ventures says: “We’ve known Sébastien and his team for more than a year already and are highly impressed with their ability to build a product that their initial customers love. Without significant funding, the Urbio team has managed to build a strong commercial pipeline and hire strong candidates as the foundation of what we believe will be a global tone-setter in urban energy planning software.” Co-leading the round, Rokas Peciulaitis from Contrarian Ventures states: “In order to reach ambitious net-zero goals, we really need to rethink our energy systems in cities around the world. Urbio’s team has built a powerful product that is a must-have tool to accelerate decarbonization of energy systems. We are really impressed by the team’s drive, technical expertise and their conviction that it is their company’s core mission to enable more sustainable urban environments globally.“ Urbio is excited by the diversity of these new partnerships. “Besides the capital that will support the growth of our team, we’re thrilled to count on the extensive experience in software and climate tech of our investors, as well as far-reaching international networks”, says Sébastien Cajot, CEO of Urbio. “Joining forces with such forward-thinking people represents a giant leap forward for our company. This will let us reach customers faster and with a considerably better product that is up to the challenge of the energy transition.”

Contact Sébastien Cajot CEO and Co-founder contact@urb.io Useful links Press images

About Urbio Urbio is a spin-off from EPFL Valais (Switzerland) that develops software to help the key actors of the energy transition plan and design the most efficient energy infrastructure and technologies to heat, cool and electrify buildings – one of the leading sources of carbon emissions. Web: www.urb.io About Wingman Ventures Wingman Ventures is Switzerland’s leading pre-seed fund, backing founder teams building tech companies with the potential to become global market leaders. Wingman has a track-record of supporting exceptional founders in creating breakthrough companies and has the passionate conviction that the Swiss startup ecosystem is just now beginning to write its best success stories. Web: www.wingman.ch About Contrarian Ventures Contrarian Ventures is a hands-on, community-focused and founders-vetted early-stage climate tech focused VC investing in Europe and Israel. The firm is one of the most active early-stage investors backing emerging technologies in energy tech and smart mobility sectors. Contrarian Ventures has also founded a number of initiatives that are contributing to the fostering of a Climate tech community in Europe incl. Climate50, Energy Tech Summit, and Energy Tech Challengers. Web: www.cventures.vc About Urban Us

Urban Us is a leading early stage investor for start-ups upgrading cities for climate change. Urban Us has invested in over 100 early stage teams, across the capital stack via their VC and credit platforms and operates URBAN-X in partnership with BMW Group’s MINI as well as a network of over 10,000 investors, experts and customers.

Web: www.urban.us