Circolife Raises $4.5M Pre-Series A Led by Bharat Jaisinghani to Scale Cooling-as-a-Service

Cooling-as-a-Service (CaaS) platform Circolife has raised $4.5 million (around Rs 40.45 crore) in a pre-Series A funding round led by Bharat Jaisinghani, Joint Managing Director of Polycab India.

The round also saw participation from individual, fund and family-office investors including Nitish Mittersain, Intelliquity Ventures, Sumit Jalan, Siddharth Ladsariya, Anand Ladsariya, Anant Goenka, Sky Impact Capital, Rohit Dev, and family offices S N Damani and Vyom Wealth.

Circolife plans to use the fresh capital to expand its air-conditioning fleet and geographic footprint, strengthen its installation and service capabilities, and advance its AI-enabled IoT predictive-maintenance and digital twin platform.

Building Cooling-as-a-Service Infrastructure

Founded in 2023 by Abhishek Murarka, Tushar Patil and Devanshu Mishra, Circolife operates a subscription-based cooling model for businesses.

Instead of requiring customers to purchase and maintain air-conditioning equipment themselves, Circolife owns, installs and services the AC units throughout their working life. Customers pay a monthly subscription fee for access to the cooling infrastructure.

The Thane-based startup currently operates across five Indian cities and serves businesses across restaurants, hotels, gyms, salons, co-living spaces and corporate offices.

Using IoT and AI to Predict AC Failures

Technology is a key part of Circolife's operating model.

Its AC units are connected devices equipped with embedded IoT sensors that monitor parameters including temperature, power consumption and gas pressure in real time.

The collected data feeds into a predictive-maintenance system designed to identify potential equipment failures before they result in breakdowns.

Circolife is also combining AI with additional sensors to develop digital twins of its deployed cooling equipment. This allows the company to monitor equipment performance and improve maintenance throughout the lifecycle of each unit.

Once equipment reaches the end of its initial lifecycle, Circolife refurbishes and redeploys the units, creating a model centred around long-term asset utilisation.

Targeting 40,000 Cooling Units

The company plans to use the latest funding to expand its fleet and geographical presence while increasing its internal installation and service capabilities.

Circolife is targeting a fourfold increase in its subscription base and plans to reach 40,000 deployed units within the next 24 months.

The company's model addresses a growing challenge for businesses that require reliable cooling but may not want to make large upfront investments in air-conditioning infrastructure.

India's Growing Cooling-as-a-Service Market

Cooling-as-a-Service is gaining traction within India's climate-tech and energy-efficiency ecosystem as businesses increasingly look for ways to reduce upfront capital expenditure and improve energy efficiency.

Other companies are also exploring the segment. Smart Joules operates a CaaS model through its JouleCool platform, while Tan90 is working on thermal-energy-storage solutions and has expanded into cooling-as-a-service for cold-chain businesses.

With its combination of subscription-based cooling, IoT monitoring, predictive maintenance and AI-powered digital twins, Circolife is positioning itself as an infrastructure platform rather than simply an air-conditioning provider.

The new $4.5 million funding gives the startup capital to scale that model across more cities and significantly increase its installed cooling fleet.