Securing Investment

Ultra-efficient heating and cooling start-up, Conry Tech, has announced the closure of a pre-seed round led by Bandera Capital alongside Pacific Channel. The strategic investment takes Conry Tech’s total funding to $8.7m, and will support the founders’ mission to eliminate another billion tonnes of CO2 emissions caused by air-conditioning. The trio reached this gigaton emissions milestone at their last business where they created a better air-con unit, now they want to reinvent the industry entirely.

Conry Tech is now growing its team to build its ‘Bull Ant army’, its small, incredibly powerful, and ultra-efficient modular air-conditioning units designed for commercial buildings and data centres. The company believes Bull Ants can be Australia’s answer to one of the world’s biggest pollution problems. The DCCEEW estimates that Australian refrigeration and aircon used ~25% of all electricity generated in Australia last year, and the Bureau of Meteorology predicts that 2024 will be one of the hottest summers on record. Bull Ants can cut the energy use and emissions of a commercial building’s air-conditioning by 40% – which is vital as countries aim to reduce cooling related emissions. They are radically different to traditional commercial air-conditioning units that take up lots of space, are expensive to maintain and consume huge amounts of power.

Bandera Capital exclusively invests in climate technology hardware companies and startups it believes will have the biggest impact on reducing climate change. Pacific Channel is a New Zealand based venture capital firm specialising in deep tech.

Bandera chose Conry Tech due to the founding team’s track record building multi-million-dollar businesses that have already eliminated millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions. In his career, Ron Conry has set up 30 factories, on five continents, employing thousands of people – most notably with Turbocor in Australia, Canada, and the US. The strength of Conry Tech’s global IP/patents was also a factor. Conry Tech is exploring options for a small addition to the round with final investors before 31st Dec, with significant interest from the USA where there is a much bigger appetite for hardware investment, and where Conry Tech was just awarded the startup of the year in the Building sector by Trellis in October.

“As we approach another record-breaking summer, the Bull Ant could be Australia’s answer to one of the biggest, yet most easily ignored polluters on the planet,” said Sam Ringwaldt, Conry Tech CEO. “We started with a blank piece of paper, with a mission to revolutionise air-conditioning, knowing that approximately 10 new air-conditioners will be installed every second for the next 3 decades. The result is a modular system that cuts AC electricity use by 40%, which is an essential step for countries like Australia as they transition to renewables and focus more efforts on removing excess energy from the grid. It is also designed to appeal to emerging nations which have never used much AC, where adoption is accelerating exponentially now. We want to build a Bull Ant army, and we will begin installing our first units in Australian commercial spaces this year.  

“Truth be told, I had never really thought about air-conditioning energy use and emissions until I met Conry Tech,” said Jeremy Atkin, Partner at Bandera Capital. “Once I knew the truth of the world’s biggest secret polluter, I was convinced that Conry Tech had incredible potential. We believe in backing hardware startups because they are essential to solving the biggest climate challenges. We want to enable Conry to disrupt the market and significantly reduce commercial building emissions.”

Conry Tech has several field trials lined up for 2025, and is looking for more test-sites for its technology. These can be either retrofits into existing properties or deployments into new-build commercial properties, for companies trying to reduce their energy bills, slash their emissions, or replace their legacy AC units.

About Conry Tech

Based in Melbourne, Conry Tech is a climate and prop tech HVAC innovator founded by Ron Conry, Sam Ringwaldt and Brenda Ringwaldt, industry leaders who have already revolutionised the HVAC industry previously and have already saved over a gigaton of Co2 emissions. Conry Tech is on a mission to save another gigatons of Co2 emissions created by heating and cooling. Established in 2020, it is reinventing air-conditioning to make comfort sustainable, slash emissions, conserve energy , decarbonise the built environment, and enable a rapid transition to clean energy.