Two X start-ups at the cutting edge of smart building management
Accenta develops smart storage of building energies
Launched in 2016 by Pierre Trémolières and boosted by the X-Tech Centre, Accenta has developed a smart low-carbon boiler that allows inter-seasonal energy storage. By exploiting, for example, solar heat or heat recovered from air conditioning systems, it achieves the most ambitious objectives of energy and environmental performance for a building.
Developed in partnership with École Polytechnique, the Mine Paris Tech ARMINES’ Center for energy Efficiency of systems (Mines ParisTech) and the Bureau des recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM), French public institution for Earth Science applications, Accenta’s technology relies on two complementary tools : the accenta.design software which allows users to design the most efficient heating systems while limiting investment costs; and the platform accenta.ai which establishes an energy production and storage plan according to the needs of the building.
Accenta, which currently has 15 employees, raised 4.7 million euros in October from venture capital funds Serena and EREN Group to consolidate its position in the French market where there is no direct competitor offering a similar technology. The start-up has initiated talks in China and the United States to develop future partnerships.
The building sector accounts for almost a quarter of CO2 emissions in France and nearly 45% of the energy consumed, far ahead transportation (31.3%), making it one of the key areas in the fight against global warming and the energy transition.
Spinalcom equips buildings with their own operating system
Boosted by the Drahi – X Novation Center, Spinalcom has developed integrated solutions which allow operators, tenants, owners, etc. to optimize the management of a building in order to reduce operating costs (-15%), optimize the use of spaces (-30%), improve the safety and reliability of its technical equipment, and increase user comfort.
Spinalcom, which has invested 3 million euros in research and development over six years from 2009 to 2015, has developed a building operating system - BOS - called Spinalcore. Its particularity: correlating data from different sensors, actuators, or applications installed in a building to make them work together, in real time like the organs of a single intelligent system.
Spinalcore thus integrates information from different vertical solutions, such as surveillance, maintenance, air conditioning and ventilation systems, indoor geolocation or room reservation, and contextualizes them in the “digital twin” of the building making it smarter to offer new services and to optimize processes.
Founded in 2015 by Jérémie Bellec, Sébastien Coulon and Julien Sorin, Spinalcom has signed with many prestigious clients such as EDF, Vinci Energies, or Eiffage Services. Spinalcore is notably used on the flagship project of the new headquarters of the Vinci group called Archipel. The latter is a set of several buildings amounting to 70,000 m2 in total, located in Nanterre. It will become a showcase for the group's know-how, particularly on digitalization.