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In this episode of The Sustainable Tech Podcast, I sit down with Dr. Marshall Cox, founder of Kelvin, a company revolutionizing energy efficiency in urban buildings. Marshall shares his journey from material science research to entrepreneurship, detailing how a personal frustration with apartment heating sparked the creation of Kelvin’s flagship product, the Cozy. We dive into the challenges of scaling hardware solutions, navigating the cleantech funding ecosystem, and the surprising hurdles of energy efficiency certifications.
Marshall also provides insightful perspectives on the intersection of hardware and sustainability, the critical role of electrification in decarbonizing buildings, and Kelvin’s innovative approach to making these upgrades financially accessible. Whether you're passionate about climate tech, curious about urban energy solutions, or simply love a good founder story, this episode is packed with inspiration and valuable insights.
Learn more on the Kelvin website: https://kel.vin/
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Marshall also provides insightful perspectives on the intersection of hardware and sustainability, the critical role of electrification in decarbonizing buildings, and Kelvin’s innovative approach to making these upgrades financially accessible. Whether you're passionate about climate tech, curious about urban energy solutions, or simply love a good founder story, this episode is packed with inspiration and valuable insights.
Learn more on the Kelvin website: https://kel.vin/
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The Sustainable Tech Podcast explores the intersection of technology, sustainability, and impact. Hear stories from tech startups, software companies, non-profits, and small businesses using technology to drive environmental and social change. Each episode features entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and tech experts who share practical advice, success stories, and insights on building a sustainable future. Perfect for founders, tech enthusiasts, and sustainability advocates looking to stay ahead in the world of tech and impact-driven innovation. Subscribe now for inspiring conversations on the future of sustainable technology!
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Raphaël: Hey folks and welcome
to this latest episode of
the Sustainable Tech Podcast.
I'm your host Raph and
today we are talking to Dr.
Marshall Cox, founder of Kelvin.
We'll talk about the challenges of
energy consumption in urban areas
And the role of smart technologies in
building an energy efficient future.
I learned a ton from Marshall about
the science behind this stuff, the
technology, and about entrepreneurship.
I hope you enjoyed the
discussion as much as I did.
Hey, how's it going?
Marshall: Good, how are you?
Raphaël: Good.
So I'm just going to dive right
into this and I would love
to know about your journey.
what led you to start Kelvin?
What led you to hop into entrepreneurship?
How did this all come about?
Marshall: Yeah God, it's kind of
like a, it's not a long story,
but it kind of seems like it is.
So I got, my research and
experience , in undergrad and grad
school is in material science.
With a focus on organic electronics.
So you've heard of OLEDs,
I assume.
So a lot of materials, a lot of
research in organic light emitting
diodes and organic solar cells.
My first entrepreneurial experience
was at a company called QD Vision.
So QD Vision stands
for Quantum Dot Vision.
And if you're familiar
with the Samsung QLED TVs,
Raphaël: Yeah.
Yeah.
Marshall: acquired QD Vision and that
is the basis for that technology.
I made no money in that transaction,
but my expertise is in low
dimensional materials, quantum
dots for display applications.
So
very ridiculous, and niche.
The person who hired me at that company,
went to become a professor at Columbia
and I loved him, and so I just followed
him and I went to get my PhD with him.
And in that lab, which is called
the Columbia Laboratory for
Unconventional Electronics, which
is an awesome name there was a
heavy emphasis on entrepreneurship.
And so we do a lot of cool stuff.
There was a lot of different projects and
there was a lot of patent applications.
One of the things I stumbled onto
was my own heating in my apartment.
So I live in this kind of shithole.
It was a nice apartment,
but it was like a studio.
It was really overheated.
It was a steam heated,
radiated, heated building.
The real reason why I began looking
into this is because my twin brother,
who's a professional ballet dancer.
Got a job on Broadway, like a really good
job Broadway, and he didn't know, it was
a new show and he didn't know how long
this was going to last, and so he slept
on my floor and complained incessantly
about the hot, cold, hot, cold, hot, cold,
like he just wouldn't stop, and so,
I built the first version of what
is now called the Cozy as a means of
controlling temperature in the apartment.
And it worked really well.
And that was the origin of that.
But I'd say my entrepreneurial journey
started earlier, just being exposed to
it early as a non founding employee.
And then kind of liking that being
interested in doing that again and
looking for opportunities to do it.
Raphaël: Cool.
How does the stuff that you
learned about in the display space,
translate into heating and cooling,
Marshall: It doesn't except that.
when people learn you have a PhD,
they're like, oh, you must be smart.
It's like, no, there are a lot
of dumb people who have PhDs.
and people, I think, I'm not going to
say naively, but often it's considered
that what you learn in your PhD or in
school, you apply in the real world.
And that's obviously not true, right?
almost nothing of what you learn
in school, PhD included, is
used in your day to day life.
in that context, what I learned at
QDVision doesn't need to be applied,
What I was doing at QDVision was trying
to figure out a product something
that worked and establishing a process
for testing that hypothesizing and
building stuff that functioned.
I think that is what has been
applied universally in what I do.
Raphaël: Cool.
And when you decided to start a company
around this, so you go from like building
a prototype because your brother is
complaining about the heating what then
turns that into an actual company for you?
Marshall: that's the step that I
think most people take because they
don't have experience doing it.
But it was very easy for me in my position
in that lab to apply for a patent.
my perspective then was I could apply
for this on my own because the school
didn't really contribute to that.
I applied through the school
because I wanted to use the school
as a testbed for the technology.
so I basically gave them a
large ownership of the IP.
I licensed it back and then I was
like, hey, Columbia, you want to
test this out in your facilities?
And they were like, yeah, let's do that.
And then from that small step,
I'd say the big step after that
was we competed in a bunch of
clean tech, business competitions,
and we won a few of them
and one very big one.
And that really launched the company
in this most, official sense.
Raphaël: what was the most
surprising thing to you leaning
into this entrepreneurial stuff you
have support, but there's always
stuff that you just don't expect.
Right.
So what was the,
Marshall: Yeah, totally.
I could sum it up.
It's something that one of my first big
investors refers to as schlep blindness,
which is that first time founders
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: entirely blind to the
schlep that they're embarking on.
I had no idea what I
was getting myself into.
to go into more detail on what
that was, was essentially, you
know, I had this radiator cover.
It's not, Rocket science.
it's pretty simple to build.
It's simple to sell ish.
But the process to get it certified
as an energy efficiency technology
was outrageous.
we got funding from NYSERDA, which
is the New York State Energy Research
Development Authority, It took eight
years to get the technology into what's
called the technical resource manual,
where you have to be to get incentives.
And that is an outrageous amount of
time.
Like that's longer than most startups
Raphaël: Last.
Marshall: or even sell.
That was the biggest surprise,
and it continued to be a very big
surprise for a very long time.
And to add insult to injury, we were
entered into the New York State Technical
Resource Manual in December of 2019.
So we were like, all right, we finally
Raphaël: Ready to go.
Marshall: guess what
wasn't happening anymore?
Any access to any apartments.
It took a while for us to get beyond that.
Raphaël: I've heard a couple
interesting stories about
navigating lockdowns recently.
I'm curious, what happened for you?
Did you just have to
put everything on hold?
Did you have the
resources to just carry on
Marshall: we weren't allowed
to do any in unit work.
We did what we could.
We spent a lot of time thinking
about what we were doing.
We actually developed a new
product during that time.
the PPP loans are what got
us through we had one big
contract that was Put on pause.
once things relaxed and we developed
a personal protective equipment
strategy, start making revenue again.
that was really painful.
Raphaël: I'm curious, do you think there's
anything, I mean, there's something
unique to, your situation in terms of
the background, you had the context in
the lab do you think there's anything
to the sort of ecosystem in New York
that in particular is helpful to the
kind of thing that you were doing or.
Marshall: People consider us
like the OG hardware company
because we've been around for so long.
much fewer resources for
startups than there are today.
there's all kinds of accelerators
today and it's great.
we benefited from that somewhat,
but we were like the first ones.
they were still building
the programs, et cetera.
our market's New York.
it's every bigger, older city, but,
New York City is the steam
capital of the world.
So, all the customers we
could ever need are here.
And it's just a great place for us
to be in a location where most of
your early customers are, so you can
Raphaël: Of
course.
Marshall: Yeah, I mean, outside
of that, the finance industry
here is really helpful because,
That's been one of the biggest
unlocks for us, honestly, in terms
of sales is financing the product.
New York City is a great place
to have a startup except that
the labor is really expensive
and the space is really expensive.
So if the pros can outweigh
the cons, then it's great.
Raphaël: Are you currently
working in other markets
Marshall: we have deployments all over
the Eastern seaboard, but I'd say 98
percent of them are in New York City.
We're raising another round, and
that round is predicated on, you
know, we've established our growth
in New York City, and now we want
to replicate that in other regions.
there are many that make really good
sense for us right now, and we want
to hire teams that focus on them.
Raphaël: I'm curious, in the sort
of hardware and sustainability, like
the intersection of hardware and
sustainability, I think there's a lot
of interesting stuff happening there.
Marshall: argue it's
where everything is happening,
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: Well, you know, people
have very different takes on
this, but sorry to hijack your
Raphaël: no, go for it.
Marshall: the era where a piece of
software is going to make a huge
difference in efficiency is kind
of over, the things that need to
be harnessed and reined in are
not controllable via software.
And so I think that to really make
the next step in sustainability for a
number of different things, you really
have to have the hardware to do it.
Raphaël: Yeah.
That makes a lot of sense.
I feel like I've seen over the past,
five plus years, a lot more emphasis
being put in hardware, both at the.
consumer ish level.
I say consumer, like you're not consumer,
you're selling to buildings, right?
If I understand correctly.
But it's still dealing
with people's lives.
I'm seeing now a lot more stuff
in mining and industrial sectors.
Marshall: yeah, there's a lot of
cool stuff going on these days
really interesting ways to tackle
problems, and it's all, you know, I
guess, I'm going to step, walk back
a little bit on the hardware thing.
I think that you have to have physical
stuff to do things physically,
right?
there's a lot of cool stuff on,
like, using you know, like growing
plants in a field and then burning
it to extract metals that the, that
the plants are designed to extract.
just cool stuff like that.
there's a lot of awesome things going
on in the industrial world, effluent
management a lot of cool stuff on mining.
Agreed.
Raphaël: Yeah.
So with that context, I'm
kind of curious, you mentioned
you're raising another round.
what does that ecosystem
look like for you right now?
we've had some ups and downs lately,
generally in like venture capital and
in the tech and startup ecosystems
uh, generally, like more broadly.
I feel like I'm seeing here in
British Columbia and in Canada.
A lot more emphasis being
put on cleantech investments.
Marshall: Yeah, It's been up and down.
You know, there's like the
big cleantech crunch was that
2010 ish or whatever it was.
And we founded on the back end of that.
It wasn't a great time to be
raising money in cleantech.
And that was another weird time.
I think, the golden days of cleantech
investing were like 2022, 2021.
And now it's getting a little weird.
In the states, at least, because
there's political question marks which
mean maybe incentives question marks,
I mean, there's still a deficit.
on one hand, can you make a lot of money?
some of the multiples in
cleantech are not that great.
And on the other hand, can
we afford not to make these
improvements, even if they're not
the biggest money makers on earth.
I think both those things are
kind of fighting each other.
We're in a position where
our numbers are really good.
we're in pretty good shape for funding.
But that's not true of a lot of
companies out there right now.
it's a tough environment because
everyone's trying to raise money
Interest rates still aren't great
and a lot of companies rely on that.
I think more and more people are seeing
cleantech as not only a place where you
can make money, but where philanthropic
dollars could be uniquely enabling too.
It's just the people who work
in cleantech are not necessarily
working in cleantech because they
want to make a lot of money, right?
Like, a lot of people are, it's
crazy how many people are moving
into cleantech because they feel
this, you know, maybe they've just
had kids or something like that.
Like, they have an existential dread
of what could happen if these
problems aren't solved, and
that's certainly why I'm here.
Yeah, it is interesting.
And the fundraising market is always
a up down question mark thing.
I don't know what it's like in Canada.
In the United States, it's
a little rough right now.
Raphaël: Yeah.
I feel like, given that we're a
small ecosystem placed next to a
behemoth we kind of get dragged
along, is what it feels like.
Marshall: there's a lot of
good companies in Canada,
Raphaël: that in mind, I'm curious,
you mentioned the motivations
of people going into cleantech.
how does that affect setting a vision,
mission for your company, how do you
hire, all of these operational things tie
into, why people approach this sector.
Marshall: Yeah as a startup,
we have funding limitations.
we're not going to be able to pay
as much as Peloton, the pull of
climate tech allows you to get better
people than you otherwise would.
Raphaël: yeah,
Marshall: especially in New York City,
where we're competing against, ad tech,
where you're getting paid way more than
we could ever pay you I think that's the
biggest implication, of working in this,
you get people who are really passionate
about it don't necessarily need to make,
a million dollars a year and are still
going to put a lot of effort into it,
people are driven in this market
because it is so important.
Raphaël: I think something
like do well by doing
Marshall: Yeah.
Raphaël: yeah, I totally get it.
Marshall: Usually co opted
by industries that are just
greenwashing what they're doing
Raphaël: can you speak to that, because
you're probably competing with a lot of
people who are doing greenwashing, who are
saying that they'll provide some solution
that competes with you, but isn't actually
Marshall: I mean, Yeah, there
are a few peppies that I have.
I'll share
one without saying anything bad
about the carbon credit market,
right?
That's made a lot of companies.
And it's a, valuable market.
We don't do anything in it because If
you entomb carbon for, a thousand years
or 10,000 years, whatever it is you get
paid $50 for that ton of carbon entombed.
If you avoid the burning and creation
of a ton of carbon, you get $7.
So like the market is like.
Is really bizarre.
And, and the thing I want to point
out in the market, which is ridiculous
is how not cutting down a forest has
kind of overtaken the entire market.
And if you tell them you're not
going to cut down your backyard,
you can get a lot of money for it.
there's been a lot of research
recently showing that is, Horrible.
it doesn't work at all.
And there's enormous amounts of fraud.
that whole market is, is kind
of messed up because of an
aspect of greenwashing, right?
Like, Oh, I'm not going to
cut down this thousand acres.
And you're going to pay me money and then
it's going to suddenly create this huge
benefit on a climate sense and it doesn't.
Raphaël: I'm kind of curious,
actually I realize we haven't really
talked much about the product, tell
me more about the actual product.
you mentioned the story that started it
all, so I think we have a sense of it.
I've looked around your website
and checked it all out, but yeah,
tell
Marshall: Yeah.
So we have one product that is the
basis of all our growth And then
a third that's kind of feature
and try to figure out the
best way to introduce it.
So we started out with this cozy,
It's an efficiency product
for rare buildings.
Let's get control of these systems
because they're horribly wasteful.
It's one of the most inefficient
building stocks in the world.
it works by, stopping heat from
transferring into a room when it
has enough heat, since the system
is, pressurized steam if you're not
condensing in one area, That steam remains
pressurized to flow to a low pressure
area, where steam is condensing, where
heat is being transferred to a room.
we're able to balance out the
heat transfer in a building,
which stays between 25 and 40%.
Raphaël: Okay.
Marshall: too many details about
the physics the second product.
And so that's what we should do with all
our radiator heated buildings, right?
There's two things you can do
in a building with radiators,
You can make it more efficient
or you can electrify it.
And
it turns out that electrifying these
buildings is outrageously hard.
If you had to estimate how many buildings
in New York City of the type we work
with, like larger multifamily have
electrified, what would you guess?
Raphaël: I have no idea.
Marshall: Two complexes.
There's a few smaller buildings,
on the order of 10 or 15
apartments that I've electrified,
but of the larger buildings, there's two,
Raphaël: two.
Marshall: And one is an NYU dorm
Raphaël: Okay.
Marshall: one was a NYCHA, New York
City Housing Authority conversion.
they're doing these conversions
to make them privately owned by
a corporation for like 99 years.
in exchange the corporation
has to put a lot of money into
the building and upgrade it.
both complexes started
their work three years ago.
They're both vacant.
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: Still, because the work's still
being done.
So it's three years of vacancy and
tens of millions of dollars to do it.
the amount of work required and
the cost to do it is just crazy.
And no one's ever going to do
it if they're not required.
And why you can do it?
Cause they have more money than anybody.
And NYSHA no longer requires it for their
contracts because it was so onerous.
The barriers are vast.
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: Finances is one part.
And that's a big one, but
procedurally, it's a bigger one.
buildings have heating plants.
let's talk about America.
Buildings have heating plants.
You paid for your heating system.
Are you gonna replace it before it dies?
The answer is almost always no,
because nobody does that.
So you wait until it dies.
When do you think heating
systems typically die?
They break when used.
Raphaël: Okay.
Marshall: they break in
Raphaël: When you need them.
Marshall: it's an utter emergency,
and 96 percent of all heating plant
failures in the US are replaced
with the exact same system.
So you lock in another 20 or 30
years of natural gas consumption.
And this is what happens everywhere.
if you think, like, that's the US number.
Multifamily, like you have 100 families
now that are not heated in February?
there's no way they're going to
consider a sustainable upgrade.
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: Our pathway is let's
get control of our systems.
I mentioned
product number two is called
hybrid electrification.
what we're doing with this product
is deploying a commodity heat pump
that works above freezing and you use
the radiator system below freezing.
So you can install it.
Now we attached to this heat pump.
A thermal battery system, so you can
do demand response and in all the
regions where you find these big steel
and steam buildings, demand response
and grid services are valuable because
you have a stressed electricity grid.
And so we can monetize the demand
response for these systems and generate
enough revenue to pay for the entire
implementation of the technology.
So we literally install
it for free in buildings.
Every day that's not peak air
conditioning, we use that battery
to do what's called peak shading.
And so in these, this is
getting really technical.
I apologize.
But in these big buildings, they're on
a commercial rate typically and half
their electricity charge more or less
is how much is called the demand charge.
what's their maximum draw during the
month or day or whatever their rate is.
we reduce that a ton because we shave
all the, the conditioning consumption
to an off peak time the end result
is we monetize demand response to
pay for implementation, and then
we reduce their peak demand charge
so much that heating costs
less than natural gas heating.
Raphaël: Okay.
Marshall: And so it's free and
it lowers their operating costs.
And it turns out that 75
percent of heating is done
above freezing temperatures.
So we can decarbonize
for 75 percent for free.
So that's pretty much it.
That's step two.
And step two lines you up for step
three, which is when the boiler dies,
we're in the building with a plan to fully
electrify, and we've already installed
all these heat pumps and units designed
to integrate into a full electrification
solution, so the final step costs
less than the boiler replacement.
everything we're trying to do
at Kelvin is to create a pathway
towards full electrification
that is driven financially.
There's no emotion
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: to be in this equation for it to
move forward, because there is no emotion.
I mean, there's people who run these
buildings, but they're businesses.
They're fiduciarily
responsible to make money.
And we just need to align
that with decarbonization.
Raphaël: That makes a lot of sense.
If there's no reason
for them not to do it.
Why wouldn't they?
Cool.
No, that was really cool actually.
And so long term, what's the
pathway to getting all of this in
every building around the world?
Marshall: Yeah, I mean, we're
deploying a lot of units this year.
We're 10x ing our deployments.
And that's the Cozy.
We're releasing hyper electrification
late next year, commercially, and
that'll be a free upgrade to all
existing, Cosy deployments, more or
less, and then we'll start selling
in multiple cities next year, and
eventually we'll start, doing these
free upgrades to hyper electrification,
I think the market's gonna like a
free thing that removes, liability.
our job is literally to make
it free and make buildings
money as a course of business.
And if we can do that, we
can deploy it at scale.
Raphaël: I love it.
That's awesome.
can I ask which markets
you're moving into?
Marshall: Where, urban areas have
good energy efficiency incentives and
have grid issues that will pay for it.
And that's Chicago, Boston a
lot of the Exelon territories
you know, Baltimore, et cetera.
And I think that list will expand
because energy efficiency is
going to become more important.
grids are only going to get more stressed
electrifying heating in the winter.
And so those demand response
revenues will start creeping up.
Raphaël: out of curiosity you
ever thought about Canada?
Marshall: yeah, we're
looking at Toronto already.
I think we have a project that's,
you know, we're scoping in Toronto.
so that's one of the places
we've been speaking to.
Raphaël: How
about Montreal?
Marshall: Montreal as well.
I spent a summer in Montreal, I
went to McGill for summer school.
It was awesome.
Raphaël: I study at Concordia,
and I feel like a lot of
Montreal buildings could use your
Marshall: Yeah.
although I will say like, you know, it's
a more aggressive cooling market, right?
Or heating market, right?
So it's, it's much colder there.
And so,
you know, depending on where you
are on the earth, you're going
to need more or less cooling.
So you get farther south and we
electrify more with this hybrid approach.
further north, you electrify less.
That doesn't mean it
doesn't make sense at all.
It's just that you get less
decarbonization over the course of
a year, the further north you go.
it all depends on the economics.
it still sets you up for full
electrification to a certain extent.
But I see it being valuable everywhere.
And then, if we're in Canada, we can
always do a cold climate heat pump.
It's not like a huge delta.
But there is a technological jump and a
cost jump when you go to cold climate.
Raphaël: I'm kind of curious if you
have any advice specific people who
want to come work for you, people
who want to work in the field, people
who want to get into sustainability,
Marshall: I use recruiters very
rarely because I never find
who I want through a recruiter.
It's mostly network.
if you want to get into cleantech,
go to the cleantech events, the
business plan competitions, but more
so go to the accelerator events go
to climate week and those events.
That's where you meet
all the entrepreneurs.
when you.
speak to people and you have a common
interest you learn more about it.
it's very hard to get into an
industry like that when we've
never worked in a startup.
And there's not clear overlap between
what you're doing, what they need.
But you can move in that direction.
You can start doing projects with
companies and things like that.
And it really depends on where
you are in your life, right?
If you're in university, super easy.
if you want to get into it, after
you've had a career for 20 or
30 years, it's a lot harder, but
it's still definitely doable.
But I'd say the first step is really
to meet those people, talk to them, get
to know them, offer help where you can.
Show that you can bring
a lot to the table.
Raphaël: Awesome.
I love it.
it is that time.
I'm going to ask you for a product
that you'd like to shout out.
Marshall: Yeah, I think my favorite
thing right now is the computer I'm
using, which is a Framework computer.
I hate buying pre assembled laptops
that then you throw out and buy a new one.
So the framework is awesome
because it's not that expensive.
it's as much as a normal laptop.
But you buy you know, The memory, you
buy the hard drive, you buy the keyboard,
you buy the mouse, you buy the screen.
And if any of those things
break, you can replace it
Raphaël: Yeah.
Marshall: buying a new laptop.
So I'm a big fan of them, and I met
their director of products the other day,
Raphaël: Oh, cool.
Marshall: totally awesome.
Raphaël: Do they have people in New York?
Are they New York based?
Marshall: No, I met them at a Yale event,
a Yale entrepreneur, a client,
cleantech event.
Raphaël: Okay.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
That's awesome.
I love it.
Cool.
Well, thank you so much, Marshall.
I've learned a lot.
it's really interesting to understand
your journey and your industry.
I feel like I haven't gotten the
opportunity to talk to a lot of
people in this kind of like B2B
to C sort of hardware is kind
of unique and interesting to
Marshall: interesting.
Yeah, people are often very surprised
about how the sales process goes
just by virtue of who we're actually
selling to and who benefits is unique.
Raphaël: Well, thank you
so much for the chat.
Marshall: Thank you for your time.
Raphaël: All right.
See ya.
Marshall: See ya.
Raphaël: folks, that was
my interview with Dr.
Marshall Cox, founder of Kelvin.
I learned so much in our chat, I really
hope you did too, I hope you enjoyed it.
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