Founded in 2011 by Christian Deilmann (CEO) & Johannes Schwarz (CTO), Germany-based tado has built energy-efficient smart thermostats & services (with the advantage that they're "compatible with <95% of homes in Europe"). Easy to self-install, the offering can reduce heating costs (through e.g. geofencing – which controls a home’s temperature based on whether anyone’s in the house - & open window detection) by 22% on average (or a customer payback time of less >6 months). The company plans to use the new funding to combine its smart thermostats with “time-of-use” energy tariffs; essentially encouraging users to consume electricity at specific times when its cheaper. To do so, tado last year acquired Awattar, which provides power...

UK-based ElevenLabs develops a platform that enables users to produce text-to-speech voiceovers & audio dubs in various languages. For example, ElevenLabs recreated Steve Job's voice (by tweaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT) to read a brief description about the firm. The platform's application crosses a variety of industries: from audiobook publishers to YouTube creators (who record in several languages). Founded in 2022 by Mati Staniszewski (CEO) & Piotr Dabkowski (CTO), ElevenLabs will use the new funds to launch its platform in beta & continue "automated dubbing" research. The firm's long-term objective is to "make speech understandable in any language". <Source: techfundingnews>