Regli Energy Systems: The Venture Leader Cleantech producing high-efficient and sustainable heat pumps

26.09.2022 10:00, Tracy Woodley

The Swiss National Startup Team welcomes new members: A jury selected 10 startups for the Venture Leaders program dedicated to the cleantech sector. During their roadshow, the Venture Leaders Cleantech will meet international investors and industry leaders and access industry-specific expertise and networks to grow their companies. Allow us to introduce you to each of the Venture Leaders Cleantech 2022 ahead of the October 2022 roadshow in Munich: Meet Julian Münzel, the CEO and co-founder of Regli Energy Systems.

Name: Julian Münzel
Location: Glattbrugg
Nationality: Swiss
Graduated from: ZHAW School of Management and Law, Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, 2014
Job title: Co-Founder and CEO
Number of employees: 12
Money raised: CHF 500,000
First touchpoint with Venturelab: May 2020 when I took part in the Innosuisse Business Growth Advanced Engineering course. 


Explain what your startup does and why: We engineer and produce high-efficient, sustainable heat pumps, which help to make the heating transition and thus the energy transition happen.

How and where did you come up with the idea for your startup?
My co-founder Thomas Regli has vast experience within the cooling industry. After developing cooling machines for complex industrial solutions (for example, laser cooling) he had the idea of engineering a heat pump running on natural refrigerants, that would also be available to households. 
 
What do you expect from the Venture Leaders roadshow, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
We hope to meet like-minded people and grow our network. We also want to exchange with potential partners from Germany to enlarge our footprint on the market. As we are currently raising funds for our Series A round, we are also excited to meet potential investors at the roadshow to support our growth in the next phase of targeting new geographical markets. 
 
Who does your product or solution help, and how?
The building stock in Europe is very old. More than 75% of buildings were built before 1990. These badly insulated homes need to have an update for their heating systems. Common heat pumps cannot fulfill the heating need sufficiently, and that is where we laid our focus. Our heat pumps can effectively heat all types of heating systems and buildings. 
 
What are you most excited about at work right now?
We are steadily growing and are moving in all sorts of directions. Currently, we are focusing on our market entry in Germany and meeting potential partners – very exciting. Plus, we are constantly working on new solutions: we are currently developing new, large-scale heat pumps to bring the heating transition to the cities. The market for heat pumps is growing rapidly, and we want to get the best solutions to our customers in order to accelerate the green transition. 
 
How did you build your team?
We focused on support in the right areas. Whereas in the beginning, I did a lot of sales tasks on my own, we gradually started hiring business developers to take over this area. Also, we hired technicians and engineers to cover a large amount of workload around product development and deployment. We also try to foster the next generation of employees and hire talents directly from universities. Although there is not much work experience yet, our interns and trainees thrive quickly in our dynamic and challenging work environment.
 
Which market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup?
We are currently active in Switzerland and Germany. We cover most of Switzerland already, while our German operations are continually being rolled out further starting from the south. But the potential for heat pumps is tremendous: all countries in the northern hemisphere are potential markets for us due to similar climate conditions. The challenge of sustainable, yet efficient heat provision is a shared challenge across the globe. This is also visible in governmental support and incentives for the installation of heat pumps across Europe and North America.
 
What are your key achievements to date?
We built a machine that is world-leading: our NovaAir is 25% more efficient than the industry average. This achievement cannot be accentuated enough, since it brings cost and energy savings of that number to each customer. We are proud to be a part of Solar Impulse Foundation Efficient Solutions and of the support we get from Tech Fund, Climate Foundation, and now Venture Lab. While the NovaAir is a great achievement – we don’t have to rely on it. We have a large product portfolio and fulfill the needs of most projects of all sizes with regard to clean, efficient, and sustainable heating.
 
What is your favorite podcast and why?
Currently, I’m hooked on the Fall of Civilizations, a podcast about ancient civilizations that eventually ended. One can learn a lot from history. 

What is your favorite book and why?
My favorite book at the moment is Breath. It is a book about how important breathing is for humans and how it has changed over the years. Very interesting.

Who inspires you and why?  
I’m generally inspired by nature. Nature is such a well-balanced system, that we can learn from it immensely. I am very interested in biomimicry. 

What is the most challenging aspect of being a founder?
There are a lot of challenges and I think the sum of it all makes it the most challenging. There are so many different aspects, that need to be taken into consideration when making decisions. This pushes me to always learn more every day – which is also the most rewarding aspect of being a founder.

How do you foster creative thinking among your team members?
We give a lot of responsibility to our employees and conduct regular creative sessions. I am very passionate about design thinking and user-centric approaches. I use some of the tools I’ve learned in the past to ignite creative thinking processes.

Venture Leaders Cleantech is organized by Venturelab and supported by Alpian, AMAG, EPF Lausanne, ETH Zurich, EY, Helbling Technik, Romande Energie, Canton Vaud, and VISCHER and Venture Leaders alum Patrick Maillard.