Scaler raises $10M for real estate decarbonisation

 Scaler, a platform for decarbonising real estate with machine learning, ESG data collection and reporting, has raised $10 million led by Plural in Series A funding.

Real estate is the world’s largest polluting industry, contributing nearly 40 per cent of global emissions, of which 70 per cent comes from building operations and 30 per cent comes from construction. 

Regulatory and investor pressure is pushing the sector to reach Net Zero targets by 2050 but real estate investors and asset managers have to manage climate risks by investing in retrofitting and renewable energy whilst also delivering returns. 

Only 2 per cent of existing buildings are able to support the transition to net-zero in their current form,

For the past decade, real estate investment firms have relied on a combination of increasingly complex spreadsheets, legacy software, and consultants to try to understand the impact of their assets, which hasn’t solved the problem.

Founded in 2021, Scaler is building the software infrastructure to streamline ESG data collection and reporting and transform it into insights that will drive sustainable change to get to net zero.

Scaler was founded by Zlatan Menkovic (CEO), former startup founder and product lead at Uber, and Luc van de Boom (CBO), who comes from a real estate ESG background and was an early employee at GRESB - the global ESG benchmark for real estate and infrastructure. 

The platform provides real estate investors and asset managers with granular data and insights across all their assets, down to building-level and metre-level, to uncover the biggest problems and help them prioritise activity.

Scaler’s models help clients create roadmaps and order work such as retrofitting or installing heat pumps and solar panels. 

Customers can model the impact of decisions and their overall portfolio to asset-level footprint, and generate reports for different disclosure and regulatory requirements. It’s also been designed for specialists and non-specialist teams so anyone can use the tool, from CFOs to sustainability leads and property managers. 

Since launch, the startup has been working with 30 customers, which have over $350 billion under management and have collectively planned $840 million in improvement and retrofit measures through the platform.

In 2022, Scaler users reduced their carbon output by 15 million kgs - equivalent to the electricity use of over 10,000 homes a year. 

Zlatan Menkovic, co-founder and CEO of Scaler, said: 

“If you want to have a global impact, there are few better places to start than the real estate industry.

Investors are under pressure to decarbonise their portfolios, but to do this effectively they need data, presented and analysed in a way that helps them make the best decisions, for their clients and the world. 

This is exactly the problem we’re solving with Scaler and we’ve been blown away by the reaction and feedback from our customers.” 

Khaled Helioui, Partner at Plural, said: 

“Solving the real estate industry’s carbon problem is complex, when north of 60 per cent of carbon emissions in major cities come from buildings and energy use is only increasing.

In only a few years, Scaler has built the most compelling software solution in the market to rapidly appraise investors’ ESG scores across their properties and outline concrete strategies to meet net zero targets. 

We’re excited to work with them to transform the real estate industry.”

The new funding, which included participation from previous investor Base10, will support Scaler on this global mission, enabling it to expand beyond Europe and the US to the APAC region, where it recently signed its first customers and hired its first team member. 

Lead image: Scaler. Photo: uncredited.