BC Business
Miru co-founder and CEO Curtis Berlinguette is betting that windows can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the air
It’s about a minute into our interview before Curtis Berlinguette makes a bold statement. The co-founder and CEO of Vancouver-based Miru Smart Technologies has been a professor in the field of chemistry for 18 years (first with the University of Calgary and now at UBC) and did his postdoc fellowship at Harvard. Much of his work has been in building technologies that reduce CO2 emissions. And that work has led him to a conclusion that will likely come as a shock to most.
“What surprises people is that 27 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from the heating and cooling of buildings, and nearly half of that is due to the inefficiencies of windows,” he says. “And so I will get into a debate with anybody, and I can show you the numbers… windows can eliminate more carbon than electrifying all the vehicles on the planet.”
Berlinguette started working on smart window technology that automatically darkens windows at the University of Calgary. In 2013, he moved over to UBC and, in 2018 he entered into UBC’s Creative Destruction Lab. A year later, he dubbed his company Miru and set out to try and convince people of the opportunity that existed with windows.
“Our relationship with windows has always been the same,” he says. “We have blinds and curtains that you control for the sun’s glare; most people don’t realize what an energy hog windows actually are.”
Miru’s business model involves licensing its eWindow technology to manufacturing partners and teaching them how to use it. In the last few years, Berlinguette has seen people changing their attitudes on windows, especially those in the automotive industry, noting that manufacturers like Porsche have moved towards smart windows because they both save heat and increase comfort. Compared to something like tinted windows, which Berlinguette says let in a lot of heat, Miru’s prototype completely blocks out the sun.
“Now all the large automakers are moving towards dynamic windows and we’re timed perfectly where we actually have this really unique value proposition,” he says. “We were building it for buildings, but then the automotive sector caught our prototype and was like, ‘Can you put that in curved glass?’ And we can.”
That industry push is one of the reasons that Miru was able to pull in a US$20 million Series A funding round led by BDC Capital and TNG Capital Corp. The company, which started with Berlinguette and two scientists just over five years ago now has 40 employees and plans to expand to 60 staff with the funding. It’s also secured a lease to build a demonstration plant in Mount Pleasant to show prospective partners what it can do.
“We’ve really spent the last four or five years developing the technology and trying to get the world to care about it,” says Berlinguette. “Over the last year, it’s been phenomenal, the change in the market conditions and how building developers and the automotive sector really want dynamic, energy efficient windows… now the world cares about Miru.”