By Nikki Cabus

Climate Tech startup Blue Frontier hosts official ribbon cutting in new Boca Raton headquarters

Read Time 4 Minutes

On October 26th, Blue Frontier held their official Open House and Ribbon Cutting in their new Boca Raton headquarters.

Blue Frontier is revolutionizing air conditioning for commercial buildings. The company is the developer of patented solutions for hyper-efficient comfort space conditioning, low-cost energy storage, and smart IoT controls to aggregate its air conditioners as distributed energy resources for use as a Utility-Managed Virtual Power Plant.  Blue Frontier’s first product addresses the 5 through 10-ton commercial packaged rooftop air conditioner market with a drop-in replacement offered under an HVAC-as-a-Service subscription-based business model.

Through exclusive invites, guests in attendance included City of Boca officials, members of the Economic Development department, and other important members of the Clean Tech industry and local technology and innovation leaders. The event featured a ribbon-cutting ceremony, speeches from Blue Frontier CEO, Dr. Daniel Betts, and from Andrew Duffell, MBA, President of Research Park at FAU, a tour of our facility as well as drinks and hors d’oeuvres for all.

“When we were looking for a headquarter, Boca Raton was top in our list. Boca Raton is a beautiful and diverse city, which gives us access to an extraordinary, skilled, and highly educated labor pool. Also, Boca Raton is green and celebrates its natural environment. The beaches, trees, parks, and pathways keep us always in contact with our company’s most important stakeholder: our planet. We are lucky to be here,” stated Dr. Daniel Betts, CEO of Blue Frontier.

“We have been showcased in the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, MIT Magazine, and Scientific American, amongst other national and international media outlets. Our unique, ultra-efficient, energy-saving technology has won several prestigious awards, and this is just the beginning of our commitment to “Make Heat Waves Go Away.”

Blue Frontier’s systems address every major issue associated with present-day air conditioning with a ground-breaking replacement for Packaged Rooftop Units that dominate the commercial buildings air conditioning market:  

  • Eliminates high Global Warming Potential (“GWP”) refrigerant with breakthrough liquid desiccant technology
  • Dramatically reduces AC electrical consumption by 50-90% depending on weather and usage
  • Eliminates peak electrical demand by integrating energy storage with a proprietary saltwater solution, which allows AC to intelligently store and use excess renewable energy
  • Enables early replacement of traditional ACs with HVAC-as-a-Service, a business model designed to speed market adoption by removing capital investment requirements

In August of 2022, Blue Frontier announced that it has raised a $20M Series A equity investment led by Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures, or “BEV,”  2150 Urban Tech Sustainability Fund and VoLo Earth Ventures. Blue Frontier’s commercialization partner, Modern Niagara, also participated in the funding round. The Series A financing has accelerated Blue Frontier’s plans to bring its product to market, thereby helping to propel the company towards its goal of creating gigaton reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by decarbonizing building cooling.

Founded by Bill Gates and backed by many of the world’s top business leaders, BEV has raised more than $2 billion in committed capital to support cutting-edge companies that are leading the world to net-zero emissions. BEV is a purpose-built investment firm that is seeking to invest, launch and scale global companies that will eliminate GHG emissions throughout the economy as soon as possible. BEV seeks true breakthroughs and is committed to supporting these entrepreneurs and companies by bringing to bear a unique combination of technical, operational, market and policy expertise. BEV is a part of Breakthrough Energy, a network of investment vehicles, philanthropic programs, policy advocacy and other activities committed to scaling the technologies we need to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

VoLo Earth Ventures seeks to accelerate the new energy economy by addressing the planet’s climate crisis at its roots and providing first-in funding and hands-on leadership to early-stage climate tech companies. VoLo Earth strives to grow, propagate, and capitalize on climate solutions with an intent to deliver superior investment returns and quantifiable carbon benefit.

Dr. Daniel Betts had commented, “We are delighted to receive the support of some of the highest-profile cleantech funds who share our vision of driving decarbonization both in the power grid and beyond – into the buildings where we live and work. Our partnership with these sustainable investors enables the immense global environmental impact of our technology – to bring affordable, efficient, sustainable air conditioning with low-cost energy storage to buildings around the world – and to reduce the cost to utilities of supplying carbon-free electricity for cooling.”

Jessica Del Vecchio, Economic Development Manager for the City of Boca Raton, stated, “We are so pleased to officially welcomed Blue Frontier, Inc. to their new HQ in the Park at Broken Sound in the beautiful city of Boca Raton. With their recent raise of $20MM from Breakthrough Energy Ventures (Bill Gates’ VC fund) this company’s technology is disrupting and revolutionizing the air conditioning industry. We’re lucky to have this clean tech company based in Boca Raton and congratulate them on their beautiful new space.”

To learn more about Blue Frontier, visit https://bluefrontierac.com/