We spent a great deal of time searching for partners that would support our ethics, as well as our ambition to deliver decarbonisation on a greater scale, but who would also ‘get’ Sero. A close-knit dynamic team, with a passion for our environment and for our future., a B-Corporation founded very firmly on the mission of delivering Net Zero Carbon the right way.
We’ve all heard the horror stories of how getting the level of investment wrong, or just the wrong investors, can change the nature of scaling-up businesses such as ours. There is a risk in everything you do, and there are, of course, those that will say any “big business” is bad, but we believe that the right level and type of investors can support us to have a greater impact. The teams at Legal & General and Hodge have proven that they believe in us, just as much as we do!
The multi-million investment goes directly into Sero to support further development of our products and services, scaling up the team out of our Cardiff-based hub, and expanding our scope to include work with mortgage lenders and landlords throughout the UK. This means significant inward investment for Wales, which, as a Welsh born company we’re proud to bring, but it also represents our understanding that delivering Net Zero Carbon is not something which can simply be achieved by public funding alone: To truly tackle the Climate Emergency, alongside public funds for the vulnerable in society, private investment must be leveraged. We must rebalance market forces and our own individual investments into our homes to drive decarbonisation into the everyday, and part of that means building Sero to provide an ethical business that delivers that. The opportunity to live in a Net Zero home should be available to everyone, this investment ensures that this is a possibility.
Aside from the security and growth our new partners bring, we’re also excited about their expertise. Legal & General brings a wealth of knowledge across construction, renewables, surveying and offsite construction, along with significant experience of how to successfully grow a business. Those hard-earned lessons will be invaluable to us, indeed they are already proving to be.
Hodge supplements this with their hands-on experience of mortgages and high street lending, a key sector to engage if we are to help nearly half the homes in the UK to decarbonise. Hodge is also a largely charitably owned Welsh bank, which brings us right back to the importance of our ethics on this journey.
Looking ahead, the Sero Passport launches in a few months, providing a simple and secure digital repository for each and every home in the UK. Fully integrated into the Passport, our Pathways to Zero feature takes the technical challenge out of deciding each home’s unique route to Net Zero, building from the tablet-based Capture survey that provides the robust baseline of the existing home’s “retrofit readiness”. These together provide the means to decarbonise existing and new build homes, opening up the option for those residents to have lower fuel bills and a lower carbon footprint through accessing our Sero Life home comfort service.
This investment means that we can continue with our work to help make Net Zero homes a possibility for everyone. It means our family got a little bigger, a tad more eclectic and a lot more passionate about leading change! 2022 is set to be an exciting year, and we can’t wait to get started.