Conservation Labs
H2know is a non-invasive sensor and cloud service for water-use measurement, leak alerts, and conservation.
Website: https://conservationlabs.com/
Cover Block
From the public record
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Conservation Labs |
| Tagline | H2know is a non-invasive sensor and cloud service for water-use measurement, leak alerts, and conservation. [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Headquarters | Pittsburgh, United States [PR Newswire, November 2019] |
| Founded | 2016 [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Stage | Series A [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Business Model | Hardware + Software [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Industry | Cleantech / Climatetech [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Technology | AI / Machine Learning [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Geography | North America [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder [PR Newswire, November 2019] |
| Funding Label | Series A |
| Total Disclosed Funding | ~$9.5 million [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
Links
From the public record
- Website: https://conservationlabs.com/
The Short Version
PUBLIC Conservation Labs builds hardware and software for water monitoring, and it merits investor attention because it is trying to turn a costly, operationally messy building problem into a measurable, recurring workflow with a non-invasive sensor plus cloud analytics at a point when it has just raised a $7.5 million Series A and reported roughly 150 company customers [TechCrunch, February 2024]. Founded in Pittsburgh in 2016 by Mark Kovscek, the company traces back to a practical leak-detection problem, with public profiles tying the origin both to a costly leak at his home and to his interest in diagnosing plumbing issues through sound, although those origin details are less firmly corroborated than the company and funding record itself [Dealroom, retrieved 2024] [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 2021].
H2know is the core product: a non-invasive sensor that attaches to a building's plumbing and uses machine learning to interpret acoustic signals from flowing water, with the stated goal of measuring water use, classifying fixture-level events, and flagging leaks without cutting into pipes or metering every endpoint [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024] [Momenta Ventures, retrieved 2024]. That product positioning matters because the claimed differentiation rests less on the model layer alone and more on deployment simplicity and breadth of monitoring across units, buildings, and pipe types, though investors should treat some feature-level claims as company-sourced until further third-party validation appears [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024].
Kovscek is the only named founder in the retrieved record, and public sources place him as founder and CEO with a prior analytics background, including a senior vice president for enterprise analytics role at Converseon and broader experience described by company-profile sources as more than 25 years in data science and entrepreneurship [PR Newswire, November 2019] [The New York Times, December 2010] [Dealroom, retrieved 2024]. On capitalization, the company has disclosed about $9.5 million in total venture funding, including a $1.7 million seed round in 2019 and the February 2024 Series A led by RET Ventures' Housing Impact Fund, alongside investors such as IrishAngels, Amazon Alexa Fund, Momenta Ventures, GreenGen Ventures, and Sustain VC [PR Newswire, November 2019] [TechCrunch, February 2024] [GreenGen Ventures, October 2020].
The business model is hardware plus software, and the early traction claim is encouraging but still narrow in public detail: TechCrunch reported approximately 150 company customers and "seven digit" ARR in 2023, while a trade publication said customers reduced water use by 20% or more after H2know's 2021 introduction [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Mann Report, February 2024]. Over the next 12 to 18 months, the central watchpoints are whether Conservation Labs can convert its multifamily and broader building-operations wedge into repeatable software-like economics, validate conservation outcomes beyond company-linked channels, and show that its newer edge-to-cloud sound analytics ambitions can extend the platform without diluting focus [PR Newswire, November 2019] [citybiz, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024].
Single-source, plausible -- Core company, product, founder, and funding facts are corroborated by TechCrunch, PR Newswire, and other public profiles, but several traction and outcome claims rely on single-source reporting or company-originated materials.
Taxonomy Snapshot
| Axis | Value |
|---|---|
| Stage | Series A |
| Business Model | Hardware + Software |
| Industry / Vertical | Cleantech / Climatetech |
| Technology Type | AI / Machine Learning |
| Geography | North America |
| Growth Profile | Venture Scale |
| Founding Team | Solo Founder |
| Funding | Total disclosed funding of about $9.5 million [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
The Company in Brief
PUBLIC
Conservation Labs is a Pittsburgh-based startup founded in 2016, focused on water monitoring technology for buildings [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024]. Public company materials describe H2know as a smart water monitor that measures water use and surfaces leak alerts through a connected software layer [conservationlabs.com]. The core setup matters because the company appears to be building as a hardware-plus-software business, which tends to make deployment friction and installation method as important as the analytics itself [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024] [conservationlabs.com].
The public record is thin on corporate form, but the operating footprint is clearer than the legal wrapper. Crunchbase lists the company in Pittsburgh, and the company website presents the same product identity and commercial focus around H2know [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024] [conservationlabs.com].
Chronology is more straightforward than positioning language. Crunchbase lists the company as founded in 2016, while the website centers H2know as the flagship product; by early 2024, the company had advanced to a Series A financing stage according to its Crunchbase profile [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024]. That sequence suggests a long build period between formation and institutional scale-up, which is common in sensor-driven infrastructure businesses where product validation, field deployment, and channel development usually take longer than in pure software [Crunchbase, retrieved 2024].
Single-source, plausible -- Grounded in Crunchbase and the company website; headquarters, founding year, and product focus are corroborated, but legal entity details are not established in the cited public sources.
What They Have Built
MIXED The product story is fairly specific in public sources, which matters because Conservation Labs is selling a monitoring system rather than a generic sustainability dashboard. H2know is described as a non-invasive sensor that attaches to a building's plumbing and uses machine learning to interpret acoustic signals from flowing water, with outputs that include water-use measurement, fixture-level classification, leak alerts, and conservation recommendations [TechCrunch, February 2024]. TechCrunch also reported that the system can monitor individual units or entire buildings remotely and that its differentiation rests on combining leak detection with broader water-use monitoring across building types and pipe environments [TechCrunch, February 2024].
The company website adds more operational detail, although these claims should be read as company assertions rather than independently verified performance. According to Conservation Labs' H2know materials, the system continuously monitors water use, sends email and text notifications for catastrophic leak events, ranks leak events by type, reports event time and water used, and allows benchmarking against weekly averages and trend views by date and daypart [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024]. The same materials say the sensor is installed without cutting pipes, takes measurements every second, collects 7 to 10 days of data after installation to learn baseline water use, and can integrate with third-party shut-off devices [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024].
The product surface appears broader than water monitoring alone, but the evidence is thinner outside the flagship line. Conservation Labs has publicly described Sustainable Machines as an edge-to-cloud AI platform for machine function and malfunction using sound, and citybiz referred to it as a product suite for assessing machinery condition [conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024] [citybiz, February 2024]. That suggests the underlying acoustic analysis stack may be extensible beyond plumbing, but public reporting still centers on H2know, so the more conservative read is that water remains the company's verified commercial wedge [TechCrunch, February 2024].
Unconfirmed -- This section mixes independently reported product descriptions from TechCrunch with multiple company website claims that are not independently corroborated.
Market Size and Demand
PUBLIC
The market matters now because water loss, insurance costs, and operating pressure in buildings are converging on a problem that owners can no longer treat as periodic maintenance [TechCrunch, February 2024] [PR Newswire, November 2019].
Public sourcing here is thinner than it should be for a full market map, so the cleanest read is from the demand signals around the company rather than a hard third-party TAM model. Conservation Labs sells into buildings where hidden leaks and ongoing water consumption create recurring cost exposure, with early focus on multifamily properties and restaurants and later expansion into hospitality, broader commercial real estate, and residential use cases [PR Newswire, November 2019] [Momenta Ventures]. That framing implies a serviceable market tied less to municipal utilities and more to property operators who need building-level monitoring without invasive retrofits, a point reinforced by H2know's positioning as a non-invasive plumbing-mounted sensor and cloud service [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Momenta Ventures].
The most credible tailwind is economic rather than purely environmental. TechCrunch reported that by February 2024 the company had about 150 company customers and had reached "seven digit" ARR in 2023, which suggests buyers are already allocating budget for leak prevention and water visibility rather than treating the product as an experimental sustainability tool [TechCrunch, February 2024]. The company and related coverage also position the product around both conservation and catastrophic leak alerts, which matters because those two budgets can sit in different parts of a property owner's decision stack: utilities and ESG on one side, risk management and maintenance on the other [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Mann Report, February 2024].
Adjacent markets broaden the opportunity, although the evidence is still company-led. The core wedge is water monitoring in buildings, but the same acoustic and machine-learning approach has also been described by the company as an edge-to-cloud AI platform for machine function and malfunction, and citybiz referred to Sustainable Machines as a product suite for assessing machinery condition [conservationlabs.com] [citybiz, February 2024]. That does not establish a second market at scale, but it does indicate that the underlying technical approach could touch adjacent built-environment monitoring categories if adoption in water proves durable.
Macro and regulatory forces are present in the background even when the sources do not quantify them directly. Building owners face recurring pressure to reduce operating expenses, document efficiency efforts, and avoid loss events, and a sensor that installs without cutting pipes is easier to trial inside existing properties than a full plumbing retrofit [conservationlabs.com] [TechCrunch, February 2024]. The public record stops short of a sourced market-size figure, so any TAM claim beyond this point would be inference rather than reporting.
| Market lens | Public evidence | Read-through |
|---|---|---|
| Core entry market | Multifamily properties and restaurants were the initial launch targets [PR Newswire, November 2019] | Early adoption likely depends on concentrated water spend and repeated leak risk. |
| Expanded building segments | Later targets included residential customers, hospitality, and broader commercial real estate [Momenta Ventures] | The category can travel across asset classes if installation and alert quality hold up. |
| Adjacent market | Sustainable Machines was described as machinery-condition assessment [citybiz, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com] | Acoustic monitoring may extend beyond plumbing, but public traction is not yet established. |
The table shows a market story defined by buyer pain and adjacency rather than a fully evidenced top-down sizing model. For investors, that shifts diligence toward sales efficiency, deployment repeatability, and whether water-loss prevention budgets are proving durable across property types.
Single-source, plausible -- Section relies on named public sources for customer segments and product adjacency, but no independent third-party TAM/SAM/SOM dataset was captured in the cited research.
Who Else Is Fighting for This
MIXED Conservation Labs appears to sit between traditional leak detection hardware and broader building-operations software, with its position resting less on brand scale than on a narrower technical claim: fixture-level water insight from a non-invasive acoustic sensor attached at the plumbing entry point [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Momenta Ventures].
The public record supports a three-part competitive map, even though the captured sources do not name direct rivals. At one end are incumbent plumbing and property-management workflows, which still include reactive leak response and conventional metering approaches that often require more invasive installation or less granular monitoring, according to Conservation Labs' investor and media descriptions of H2know's wedge [Momenta Ventures] [TechCrunch, February 2024]. In the middle are specialist water-monitoring products, the category Conservation Labs is clearly trying to define for multifamily and commercial buildings, with remote monitoring, leak alerts, and usage classification as the core bundle [PR Newswire, November 2019] [TechCrunch, February 2024]. On the adjacent flank are broader building intelligence platforms and condition-monitoring systems, a lane the company has begun to signal through its "Sustainable Machines" edge-to-cloud AI platform for machine function and malfunction using sound [citybiz, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com].
Where the company has a real edge today is in product architecture, not distribution. H2know is described as non-invasive, capable of attaching to a building's plumbing without cutting pipes, and designed to classify water events using machine learning applied to acoustic signals [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com]. That matters because installation friction is often the hidden tax in proptech and cleantech deployments. If Conservation Labs can keep proving that one entrance-point sensor can substitute for more invasive or fixture-by-fixture instrumentation, the product has a credible operating advantage in retrofit-heavy building stock [Momenta Ventures] [TechCrunch, February 2024]. The durability of that edge is less certain. Sensor form factor and ML classification can compound into a data advantage over time, but only if the company keeps expanding deployments and preserving performance across varied pipe types and building configurations, claims that are discussed publicly but not independently benchmarked in the source set [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com].
Its exposure is easier to see than its moat. The company had about 150 company customers as of February 2024 and had reached "seven digit" ARR in 2023, which is enough to show commercial traction but not enough, on public evidence alone, to prove channel control or category leadership [TechCrunch, February 2024]. That leaves room for two kinds of competitive pressure. First, larger property-tech or utility-tech vendors could package leak detection into a broader system sale and win on existing relationships rather than sensor novelty. Second, adjacent predictive-maintenance vendors could compete for the same facilities budget if buyers view water monitoring as one more line item inside a general building-operations stack. Conservation Labs' move into machinery condition monitoring may broaden the story, but it also risks stretching focus before the water-monitoring wedge is fully established [citybiz, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com].
The most plausible 18-month scenario is a split outcome inside the same account base. Conservation Labs is the likely winner if retrofit-friendly installation and measurable water savings remain the decisive buying criteria for multifamily owners and operators, especially because the company reported customers cutting water use by 20% or more after H2know's introduction, although that figure comes from company-linked reporting rather than independent field validation [Mann Report, February 2024]. Conservation Labs is the likely loser if procurement shifts toward bundled building platforms where water is purchased as a feature rather than a standalone operating system. On the evidence available publicly, the competitive question is not whether the problem exists, it clearly does, but whether a focused water-intelligence vendor can outrun broader platforms long enough to become the system of record for this budget line [TechCrunch, February 2024] [PR Newswire, November 2019].
Single-source, plausible -- The section is grounded in TechCrunch, PR Newswire, citybiz, Momenta Ventures, and the company website, but the captured source set names no direct competitors and several capability claims remain company or investor described rather than independently benchmarked.
Opportunity
PUBLIC
If Conservation Labs executes on the path implied by its current product and customer base, the prize is not a better leak detector, it is becoming a control layer for how multifamily and commercial buildings measure, classify, and act on water use at scale [TechCrunch, February 2024] [PR Newswire, November 2019].
The headline opportunity is straightforward. H2know appears to sit at the junction of a hard physical problem and a software-style data opportunity: buildings need a way to monitor water use and leak events without tearing into plumbing, and Conservation Labs says it can do that with a non-invasive acoustic sensor plus cloud monitoring [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com]. That makes the reachable upside larger than a single-purpose hardware sale. By February 2024, the company had raised $9.5 million in total venture funding, reported about 150 company customers, and said ARR had reached seven digits in 2023, which is enough evidence to treat this as a commercial system with early repeatability rather than a lab project [TechCrunch, February 2024].
The public record supports a few distinct paths to scale, and each depends on a different catalyst.
| Scenario | What happens | Catalyst | Why it's plausible |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multifamily standard | H2know becomes a default monitoring layer for apartment operators and owners seeking leak prevention and conservation across portfolios | The February 2024 Series A led by RET Ventures' Housing Impact Fund helps deepen distribution into housing and property-owner channels [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Mann Report, February 2024] | The company already targets multifamily, reported about 150 company customers by February 2024, and RET's housing focus is aligned with that buyer set [PR Newswire, November 2019] [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Built-environment water intelligence platform | The company expands from leak alerts into broader building water analytics, benchmarking, and workflow software across unit, building, and portfolio levels | Existing product features include fixture-level classification, remote monitoring, configurable reports, benchmarking to weekly averages, and event logs by type and duration [TechCrunch, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com] | The current product already spans measurement, classification, and recommendations, which suggests the software surface can widen without changing the core sensing approach [TechCrunch, February 2024] |
| Acoustic infrastructure beyond plumbing | Conservation Labs uses the same edge-to-cloud acoustic approach to sell adjacent monitoring products for machine condition and malfunction detection in buildings | The company has introduced Sustainable Machines, described publicly as an edge-to-cloud AI platform and product suite for machine condition assessment [conservationlabs.com] [citybiz, February 2024] | That does not prove adoption, but it does show management is already testing whether the sensing and machine learning stack can support a second category [citybiz, February 2024] [conservationlabs.com] |
The compounding mechanism, if it works, is data and distribution rather than pure device volume. H2know takes repeated measurements from pipes and uses machine learning to translate those signals into flow estimates, fixture classification, leak alerts, and usage insights, while the system also spends 7 to 10 days learning water use after installation, according to company materials [conservationlabs.com]. That suggests each additional deployment can improve the company's exposure to more plumbing environments, more event types, and more operating contexts. If Conservation Labs can convert that growing signal library into better classification accuracy across different building types and pipe configurations, the product becomes easier to trust, easier to deploy portfolio-wide, and harder to displace with a simpler point solution. The early signs are modest but real: the company had enough customer traction by early 2024 to report roughly 150 company customers and seven-digit ARR, and it says customers have reduced water use by 20% or more after H2know's introduction, though that last claim is company-reported and should be treated cautiously [TechCrunch, February 2024] [Mann Report, February 2024].
The size of the win is best framed qualitatively because no credible market-size figure or public comparable valuation is in the sourced material. A reasonable upside case is that Conservation Labs becomes a meaningful infrastructure vendor to multifamily and adjacent commercial real estate, with a second product line extending its acoustic monitoring stack into broader built-environment operations [TechCrunch, February 2024] [citybiz, February 2024]. If the "Multifamily standard" scenario plays out, the company could support a venture-scale outcome on the strength of recurring software revenue layered onto installed hardware across portfolios (scenario, not a forecast). The evidence here is enough to take the upside seriously, but not enough to put a defensible public number on terminal value without importing unsupported comparables.
Unconfirmed -- This section relies on a mix of independently reported facts from TechCrunch, PR Newswire, Mann Report, and citybiz, plus material product-capability claims from company webpages that remain company-only in the public record.
Sources
From the public record
[TechCrunch, February 2024] Conservation Labs uses sound to diagnose plumbing issues | https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/21/conservation-labs-uses-sound-to-diagnose-plumbing-issues/
[PR Newswire, November 2019] Conservation Labs Raises $1.7 Million in Seed Funding for Smart Water Monitor | https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/conservation-labs-raises-1-7-million-in-seed-funding-for-smart-water-monitor-300957049.html
[Dealroom, retrieved 2024] Conservation Labs | venture-backed company profile | https://dealroom.co/companies/conservation-labs/
[Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 2021] Company meetings at dinner: How Mark Kovscek leveraged his focus group-sized family to start Conservation Labs | https://www.post-gazette.com/business/tech-news/2021/01/03/mark-kovscek-focus-group-sized-family-conservation-labs-second-act/stories/202101030034
[conservationlabs.com, retrieved 2024] Smart Water Monitor | H2know by Conservation Labs | https://conservationlabs.com/
[Momenta Ventures, retrieved 2024] Sensor AI & ML Venture Capital: Conservation Labs | https://www.momenta.vc/insights/sensor-ai-ml-venture-capital-conservation-labs
[The New York Times, December 2010] Accounts and People of Note in the Ad Industry | https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/06/business/media/06adnewsletter3.html
[GreenGen Ventures, October 2020] GreenGen Ventures Announces Investment in Conservation Labs | https://greengen.com/newsroom/greengen-ventures-announces-investment-in-conservation-labs/
[Crunchbase, retrieved 2024] Conservation Labs - Crunchbase Company Profile & Funding | https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/conservation-labs
[Mann Report, February 2024] RET Ventures Leads $7.5M Series A in Conservation Labs | https://www.mannpublications.com/mannreport/2024/02/21/ret-ventures-leads-7-5m-series-a-in-conservation-labs/
[citybiz, February 2024] RET Ventures Leads $7.5 Million Series A in Conservation Labs | https://www.citybiz.co/article/523398/ret-ventures-leads-7-5-million-series-a-in-conservation-labs/
Articles about Conservation Labs
- Conservation Labs Is Listening to the Pipes in 150 Buildings — The Pittsburgh startup's H2know device uses machine learning to translate pipe acoustics into leak alerts and conservation reports, aiming to displace the plumbing inspection.