The most expensive air in the world is the air you heat, cool, and move around an empty conference room. In commercial buildings, that waste is a quiet climate disaster, with HVAC systems accounting for a massive share of global CO₂ emissions and a punishing line item on any facility manager's budget [Climate Network Melbourne, Jun 2023]. Brightspace AI, a startup out of Collingwood, Australia, is betting that a few dozen wireless sensors and some on-device smarts can cut that bill by nearly a third, without tearing up the ceiling.
The retrofit-friendly wedge
Brightspace's proposition is a retrofit. Instead of replacing entire HVAC systems, the company installs a network of wireless edge AI sensors that anonymously track occupancy and movement patterns [Creative Destruction Lab, 2023-2024]. The hardware feeds data to a software platform that adjusts heating, cooling, and ventilation in real time, room by room and person by person. The goal is to deliver the comfort people expect while drastically reducing the energy used to condition unoccupied or underutilized spaces. For building owners, the appeal is in the unit economics: the company claims an average ROI period of just one to two years, with HVAC energy savings averaging 30% [Brightspace AI, retrieved 2024].
Founders from the building site
The team behind the hardware reflects a practical, on-the-ground understanding of the problem. Co-founders Robert de Burgh-Day and Errol Murray built their careers in construction, building services, and electronic design, not in software labs [Climate Network Melbourne, Jun 2023]. De Burgh-Day, the CEO, started as an electrician [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. Murray, the CTO, has a background in firms like Norman Disney & Young and QinetiQ Australia [RocketReach, retrieved 2026]. This isn't a team selling AI magic; it's a team selling a tool that electricians and HVAC technicians can plausibly install, which is often the real barrier to adoption in this sector.
| Founder | Role | Key Background |
|---|---|---|
| Robert de Burgh-Day | CEO | Former electrician; extensive experience in construction and building services [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026]. |
| Errol Murray | CTO | Electronic design; previous roles at Norman Disney & Young and QinetiQ Australia [RocketReach, retrieved 2026]. |
Where the wheels could come off
For all its pragmatic appeal, Brightspace operates in a field littered with good intentions and difficult unit economics. The company's participation in the Creative Destruction Lab accelerator is a positive signal, but the public record shows no formal funding rounds or marquee investor names, suggesting a very early, likely bootstrapped stage. More critically, every one of its performance metrics,the 30% savings, the 22% reduction in energy costs, the 1+ point bump in Sustainability Rating,is currently self-reported [Brightspace AI, retrieved 2024]. In a sector where vendors have historically overpromised, third-party verification from a pilot in a real, named commercial building would be the single most valuable asset Brightspace could acquire.
The competitive landscape is also deceptively crowded. Brightspace isn't just up against other startups.
- The incumbents. Giants like Johnson Controls and Siemens have decades-deep relationships with building owners and offer sophisticated building management systems (BMS). Brightspace's wedge is that it's cheaper, wireless, and retrofit-friendly, aiming to be the agile layer on top of these monolithic systems.
- The software-only plays. A host of SaaS companies promise building analytics and optimization through data pulled from existing BMS. Brightspace's counter is that you need its proprietary edge hardware to get the granular, real-time occupancy data that drives its biggest savings.
- The privacy hurdle. Even with "100% anonymous" monitoring [Brightspace AI, retrieved 2024], convincing corporations to install sensors that track movement patterns requires navigating legitimate privacy concerns. Their success hinges on making that value proposition crystal clear and legally airtight.
The next twelve months
The path forward is a familiar one for hardware-enabled climate tech: prove it works, then prove it scales. The next milestones for Brightspace will be less about features and more about feet on the ground,or rather, sensors on the ceiling. Securing a publicly referenceable pilot with a major property owner, like an airport or shopping mall operator they mention targeting, would validate both the technology and the sales motion. Following that, a seed round would provide the capital to move from custom installations to a more repeatable, scalable deployment model.
Do the numbers pencil out? Take a mid-sized office building with an annual HVAC energy bill of $200,000. A 30% saving translates to $60,000 per year. If Brightspace's system costs, say, $120,000 fully installed, the two-year ROI they claim checks out. The real test is whether their hardware and installation costs can stay low enough to maintain that margin at scale, while consistently delivering those savings across different building types and climates. For now, Brightspace is a bet on a simple premise: the cheapest ton of CO₂ avoided is the one you never had to emit in the first place. To win, they don't need to out-code a software analytics firm; they need to out-execute the HVAC technician's van from Johnson Controls.
Sources
- [Brightspace AI, retrieved 2024] Brightspace - Intelligent Building Solutions | https://www.brightspace.ai/
- [Climate Network Melbourne, Jun 2023] A Brighter Future for HVAC systems is here, Brightspace! | https://climatenetwork.melbourne/stories/brighter-future-hvac-systems-here-brightspace
- [Climate Salad, 2023] Brightspace - Organisation | https://members.climatesalad.com/organisation/recIhj6Odo3WMYF1W
- [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] Robert de Burgh-Day - Brightspace | https://au.linkedin.com/in/robert-de-burgh-day
- [RocketReach, retrieved 2026] Errol Murray Email & Phone Number | Brightspace Founder | CTO Contact Information | https://rocketreach.co/errol-murray-email_835782678