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£1m funding for Bristol start-up engineering future of home heating
A Bristol-based start-up looking to revolutionise how we heat our homes has raised almost £1m of investment, including a grant of more than £700,000 from the government.
It’s a major boost for Nusku, which was formed in 2022 after a casual chat over coffee about why heat pumps aren’t more popular led to its founder Russell Murchie taking a leap of faith and leaving his job at Dyson to tackle the problem head-on.
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 a huge funding injection thanks to a £727,000 grant from the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.
The latest funding follows £245,000 of pre-seed funding from key people within the energy sector.
Murchie 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 £1 million 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.”
Murchie, who worked as a fluid dynamics engineer at Dyson for 17 years, during which he led its product performance team, founded Nusku with Matthew Whitefoot and Andy Mckay who have experience within the renewable energy, finance and start-up spheres.
Although 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.
Main photo: Nusku
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