Qivivo raises €900K from Saint Gobain for its Connected Thermostat

Nantes-based connected hardware startup Qivivo has raised €900,000 from investors including Saint Gobain, Go Capital & BPI France, in order to bring their intelligence thermostat to market to compete against Netatmo & Nest. Qivivo currently sells its intelligent thermostat for just 99€; however, the “Qivivo Smart” premium app, which offers automisation features for controlling the home heating and energy consumption, is a monthly subscription of 4€/month.
Qivivo faces heavy competition in the market from Nest, who launched in France last September partnering with Direct Energy, as well as from Netatmo, whose suite of smart home products recently got that much more powerful with the launch of Welcome, a home monitoring solution. Netatmo’s spark-designed thermostat is sleek in design but lacks intelligence, while Nest’s €219 thermostat comes with the whole package, without the recurring monthly costs.
Today, Qivivo offers a three year subscription for free to all buyers of its thermostat, and, in the past I’ve been favorable to a pricing model that lined up company costs with consumer expectations; however, the lingering 4€ monthly cost is a bit difficult to stomach, even if the cost is covered initially by Qivivo.
Still, there may be room for many players in the smart home, and Qivivo’s partnership with Saint Gobain, one of the oldest companies in the world, may prove a useful asset for the startup going forward.