Viboo has received a total of 1.5 million Swiss francs from investors in a seed round. The young company has developed a platform for energy-efficient control of the indoor climate of buildings. The funds will be used to commercialize it.

Swiss Wood Solutions AG, a spin-off from Empa and ETH Zurich, moved from the glatec business incubator to Altdorf in the canton of Uri in July 2022. There, the young company and its ten employees will now start producing sustainable credit cards made of wood. The "Swiss Wood Cards" are made from veneers of local woods such as maple, curly maple, cherry, oak, spruce and many others. Each card is unique with personalized laser engraving or color printing and functions like any other conventional credit card. The location decision was made in favor of the canton of Uri in April 2022 after evaluating several cantons.

https://swisswoodcards.swisswoodsolutions.ch/en

PEROVSKIA SOLAR AG is a Swiss cleantech startup from Empa offering digitally printed, customizable solar cells for OEMs. Their vision is to enable a solar cell on every device. The solar cells are tailored to seamlessly integrate with electronic devices, IoT and sensors. The versatile technology offers breakthrough performance at breakthrough cost. Perovskia's solar cells work efficiently even in low-light conditions such as homes and offices.  They offer solutions from design to integration into electronic devices.

www.perovskia.solar

A large number of factors come into play when planning the energy use of individual buildings or entire developments. In order to identify and evaluate the various energy solutions, the Dübendorf-based startup Sympheny has developed energy planning software. Using algorithms, a digital twin of the energy system and now also GIS data, the software can simulate the local production, storage and consumption of energy.

The Empa spin-off viboo has developed a self-learning algorithm for controlling the indoor climate. This enables predictive cooling or heating of buildings, thus saving around one third of energy. Following successful experiments at NEST, Empa's and Eawag's research and innovation building, the first pilot projects are now being implemented with industrial partners.
Conventional thermostats, which are commonplace in many residential buildings today, only react when the temperature falls below or exceeds a certain threshold. The reaction is therefore always too late and too severe, as the desired temperature is to be reached again as fast as possible. This costs energy and ultimately money. The solution: a thermostat that looks ahead and regulates the room temperature with foresight.