Nusku, a Bristol-based start-up, has raised almost £1m of investment, including a grant of more than £700,000 from the government announced this week.
A statement said that the company formed in 2022 after a “chat over coffee about why heat pumps aren’t more popular”, it led to its founder Russell Murchie leaving his job at Dyson to tackle the problem.
Two years later and Nusku has six employees, a workshop and office space at Future Space – the University of the West of England’s innovation centre – and now funding from a £727,000 grant from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ).
This follows £245,000 of pre-seed funding from people within the energy sector, including Kate and Andy Rankin, the founders of Midsummer Energy, Lee Sutton, founder of MyEnergi, and Michael Sweeney and Owen Coyle, the founders of Union Technical.
Russell said: “It’s been a whirlwind few years building a company from scratch and I’m still pinching myself at what’s been achieved. While we had confidence in our idea, if you’d told me two years ago that we’d raise almost £1m to develop it, I’d have struggled to believe you!
“It’s testament to the hard work of the team, who have designed a truly innovative heating system which we feel confident will have mass appeal once it’s on the market. The fact the government and leading figures from within the industry are backing us is a real vote of confidence.”
Although Russell said he can’t divulge the exact details of the Nusku system as patents are currently being applied for, he revealed it would be based on air source heat pump technology but be cheaper and quicker to install, taking a few days rather than over a week. This will specifically appeal to homeowners whose existing gas boiler has broken and they want a hassle-free and environmentally friendly replacement, the statement said.
The government grant, awarded via the Heat Pump Ready Programme and part of the £1bn Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, will enable the product to be tested at the University of Salford’s Energy House, it noted. According to the statement, the Energy House is a research and testing laboratory which comprises an early 20th century two-bedroom terraced house within an environmental chamber allowing an accurate and rapid assessment of energy efficient retro fit technologies.