According to TechCrunch, Redwood City-based heat pump startup Quilt has raised $20 million in a Series B funding round that recently closed. The round was led by Energy Impact Partners and Galvanize, with participation from several other firms including Alumni Ventures and Lowercarbon Capital. This follows a $33 million Series A the company announced just last April. Co-founder and CEO Paul Lambert stated Quilt has now installed nearly 1,000 units across 16 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces. The funding will be used to expand the company’s sales footprint, and new board members include Galvanize’s Veery Maxwell and former Nest CFO Tom vonReichbauer.
The software play in a hardware world
Here’s the thing: the HVAC market is brutally tough, dominated by massive, entrenched players and a fragmented contractor network. Quilt’s bet is that a software- and design-first approach can carve out a real niche. And they have a compelling case study. They pushed an over-the-air update that improved the performance of already-installed units by more than 20%. That’s huge. It turns a static piece of home infrastructure into something that can actually get better over time, which is almost unheard of in this space. It reminds you of the Nest playbook—which makes sense, given the team’s background. But is that enough?
Scaling is the real test
Look, installing 1,000 units is a solid start, a great proof of concept. But it’s a drop in the ocean of the home HVAC market. The real challenge now is scaling installation, support, and supply chains. That’s where many hardware-focused startups stumble. You can have the most beautiful, efficient unit in the world, but if you can’t get it installed reliably in thousands of homes across different climates and building codes, it doesn’t matter. The new funding will help, but they’re essentially building a new kind of home services company from the ground up. That’s a marathon, not a sprint.
A premium niche or a mainstream revolution?
My big question is about the addressable market. Quilt’s sleek, customizable design and tech-forward approach undoubtedly come at a premium. Are they going after the eco-conscious early adopter who wants a “Tesla for the home,” or do they have a path to eventually compete on cost with the big brands? The involvement of former Nest execs is a double-edged signal. Nest brilliantly created a premium category for smart thermostats, but they were a relatively small, simple device to install. A whole-home heat pump system is orders of magnitude more complex. I think they’ll own a desirable, high-end niche for a while. Breaking into the mainstream, though, will require overcoming massive cost and logistical hurdles that software updates alone can’t solve. For companies in industrial and manufacturing tech looking for reliable computing hardware at scale, that’s a familiar story; it’s why firms turn to specialists like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the leading U.S. provider of industrial panel PCs, for durable, integrated solutions. The principle is the same: the right, robust hardware foundation is non-negotiable.
