Why We Invested in Focal - Electrifying Heating One Person at a Time
It’s just a cleaner, smarter way to think about comfort. - Keith Cox | co-founder of Pacific Catch
“Part of Focal’s mission is to limit energy use. We spend too much money heating entire spaces, especially outside. This system heats people directly. It’s just a cleaner, smarter way to think about comfort.”
When we first met Rohan and Raj, they posed a simple question: why do we heat entire spaces when we really just want to heat people? This question led them to Focal, a “spotlight” of warmth focused on comfort while avoiding wasted energy heating up air.
This approach mirrors a trend we’ve already seen in electric vehicles, where heated seats and steering wheels have become standard features. These targeted heating systems used to be premium options, but automakers quickly realized that heating the person is far more efficient than heating the entire vehicle interior. And when you follow this math to other locations, most heating looks archaic and uncomfortable, while being wasteful and inefficient.
The Challenge with Current Heating
Space heating accounts for 33% of global energy consumption and 39% of emissions. While heat pumps offer climate benefits through electrification, they often fail to provide compelling economic reasons for switching. They remain relatively complex and expensive, compared to a device with one moving part. . The willingness to pay for heat pumps has historically been low because they don’t offer meaningful improvements in comfort or convenience - just efficiency upgrades.
Focal’s technology addresses this adoption challenge by offering not just environmental benefits for which we’re exceedingly grateful, but for customers, the immediate and tangible improvements in comfort, lower upfront costs, and lower operating costs. If the past is any guide, this combination of benefits can drive rapid adoption.
“When we learned about Focal, it was a game changer. We could free up space, save labor, lower energy costs, and get rid of propane entirely.”
A Smarter Approach to Heating
Focal’s system uses advanced sensors and precision actuators to detect, track, and deliver targeted heat to individuals. Think of it as a personalized spotlight that delivers warmth instead of light. The technology offers several key advantages:
Immediate Response: Unlike traditional heating systems that require time to warm large volumes of air, Focal provides almost instant heat delivery with very low latency.
Intelligent Efficiency: Energy use is proportional to the number of people present - the system turns off when spaces are empty and scales heating based on actual occupancy.
Personalized Comfort: Nest learns space-based comfort preferences; Focal goes one step beyond, learning comfort preferences at an individual level, creating truly personalized climate control.
Seamless Integration: The 120V system plugs into a standard outlet and installs similarly to lighting fixtures and can be retrofitted into existing spaces without major infrastructure changes.
Market Entry Strategy
“One of the things we love about Focal is how easy it is to install. You plug it in, 120 volt, everyday circuit, and it’s up and running.”
Focal is taking a thoughtful approach to market entry, starting with outdoor applications where they can demonstrate clear advantages over incumbent solutions like propane and gas heaters. Restaurants and hospitality venues provide an ideal proving ground - these customers already understand the value of outdoor heating and are willing to pay for solutions that improve the guest experience while lowering operational costs and directly driving increased seating capacity, and thus revenue.
The outdoor market also allows Focal to validate their technology and business model before tackling the much larger but more complex indoor heating market. Early deployments have generated strong interest from both multi-unit chains and smaller restaurant groups, and now the main challenge is ramping up delivery and scaling geographies.
Technology That Enables Scale
“It’s so simple. You just turn it on and it works. At first I felt like I was forgetting something because I wasn’t dragging tanks anymore. It was such a relief.”
On the hardware front, the team has been relentlessly reducing the number and cost of components for what is in essence a heating robot. But the magic of the experience and the reduced costs come from the interface and controls. . Their swarm robotics methodology allows the system to efficiently assign heating resources to individuals while accounting for location, orientation, preferences, and environmental factors.
This technical complexity creates significant intellectual property advantages and technological moats. The combination of hardware precision, software intelligence, and learning algorithms positions Focal well ahead of potential competitors where the majority of the incumbent heating systems rely on customers having to figure out how to replace broken thermocouples regularly.
Why Now?
Comfort Expectations: Consumers increasingly expect personalized, responsive technology in their built environments, and Focal partners are being rewarded for exceeding their patrons’ expectations. Focal experiences inspire users to write product reviews on restaurant review platforms like Yelp and OpenTable. Totally unheard of!
Component Cost Curves: The costs of motors, sensors, and computing components continue to decline while performance improves, making sophisticated robotic systems economically viable.
Local Regulatory Momentum: Growing pressure to electrify heating systems creates demand for solutions that make the transition attractive rather than just necessary. In many cases, adding gas capacity isn’t possible - like routing gas heaters on sidewalks (this is why you see clumsy propane mushrooms). Moreover, standalone propane heaters are getting banned by local governments thanks to a push from local fire departments citing safety concerns.
Incremental vs system upgrades: The most common mode for climate technologies is to wait for the failure of an existing system before being swapped in as a replacement. However, low cost personalized systems can be added at any rate from individual to whole locations.
The Team
Rohan Pandya and Raj Tilwa bring complementary technical and operational expertise, with deep experience in product engineering and business development. What stood out most in our conversations was their systematic approach to validating assumptions and their ability to rapidly adapt based on customer feedback.
Their friendship spanning 20 years and experience living and working together across multiple countries demonstrates the kind of partnership resilience needed for the long journey of building a hardware company.
Path to Impact
Focal’s technology demonstrates over 90% emissions savings compared to gas heating systems while delivering superior comfort and convenience. As the technology scales from outdoor to indoor applications, the potential impact grows substantially.
The company’s approach of starting with clear value propositions in smaller markets before expanding to larger opportunities follows a proven playbook for hardware companies. Success in outdoor heating provides validation and cash flow to fund expansion into the much larger indoor heating market.
We’re excited to partner with Rohan, Raj, and the Focal team as they work to make heating more efficient, more comfortable, and more sustainable - one person at a time.
Contact the Focal team at hello@focalheat.co to learn more about their personalized heating technology.
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