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Team: Team

SUSTLABS

Driving behavioral change through advanced energy analytics

We are excited to announce our investment in Sustainable Reference Analytics Pvt Ltd, known as SustLabs - a

Mumbai-based energy efficiency company incubated at SINE, IIT-Bombay, which has secured $1.2 million in Pre-Series A funding led by Peak Sustainability Ventures, with participation from SIDBI, Blume Ventures and existing investor 100 Unicorns. 

Founded by Kaushik Bose and Soumya Bhattacharya, SustLabs leverages advanced AI to optimize energy consumption behavior in residential and industrial buildings, with an in-built feature of early-fire detection. Its flagship product, Ohm Assistant, is an AI-enabled smart electricity meter that provides real-time, appliance-level consumption breakdowns, and predictive alerts for potential electrical fire risks, all accessible directly from a smartphone. Unlike conventional monitors, Ohm Assistant requires no additional sensors, as it leverages AI to analyze and understand disaggregated energy frequencies from appliances. The combined product offers both a critical safety net for homes and businesses, as well as the potential for significant energy savings for users. 

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Ohm Assistant’s impact is already evident: users have reported savings of up to 17.5% on electricity bills, timely identification of faulty appliances, and prevention of electrical hazards. The device also tracks users’ carbon footprint and comparative energy consumption across demographics, helping households make more sustainable choices and contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Ohm Assistant has already been deployed in 100+ cities in India, and the company has partnered with leading building developers including Lodha, Rustomjee, and Piramal, as well as major OEMs including Schneider Electric and Panasonic.

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Kaushik Bose, CEO and Co-Founder of SustLabs, stated "We are thrilled to partner with Peak Sustainability Ventures to scale our impact across India and Europe. We intend to integrate into 100,000+ households over the next few years, to make energy consumption in homes more efficient, safe, and sustainable. We expect Ohm Assistant to play an important role in managing India’s energy consumption over the next decade."

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Samir Shah, Managing Partner of Peak Sustainability Ventures, commented "Achieving large-scale behavior change at a consumer level is one of the toughest problems to address in sustainability. We strongly believe in the view - ‘The cleanest form of energy is the energy you don’t consume’ (IFC). As energy needs rise in India over the next decade, we expect SustLabs’ Ohm Assistant to play a key role in reducing load on the grid and providing valuable technology-based solutions for India, in addition to improving fire safety in homes"

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With this new investment, SustLabs will expand its team, accelerate R&D, and build manufacturing partnerships with key players in India and Europe. SustLabs’ broader vision is to build a world-leading energy efficiency tool for the residential sector in India and Europe. Over time, SustLabs’ data sets on energy consumption can be utilized as India starts to update its grid to accommodate higher energy consumption in the region. 

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Why we Invested​

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  • Untapped Residential Market Opportunity - Despite rapid urbanization and growing electricity demand, the residential sector remains underserved in terms of energy efficiency. SustLabs is addressing this gap with a pioneering, appliance-level monitoring solution applicable in households & industry.

  • Differentiated Fire Safety Feature - With fire safety regulations tightening in both residential and commercial spaces, SustLabs' real-time fire anomaly detection tool offers critical early-warning capabilities, making it not only a value-add but a potential regulatory requirement.

  • Strong Partnerships Delivering Rapid Scale - Collaborations with industry-leading OEMs and building developers allow SustLabs to embed its technology into existing ecosystems, expanding its reach through established distribution networks while maintaining capital efficiency.

  • Mission-Driven Team - Since its inception, SustLabs' commitment to using technology to drive behavior change and reduce household emissions is evident in every facet of the business. The team is driven by a strong mission and is committed to large scale climate impact. 

  • India's future energy consumption is poised to skyrocket - Macro indicators point to an extraordinary rise in energy consumption in India over the next ten years, given dynamics around population, economic growth, affluence and urbanization. Behavioral change will be an important topic going forward.

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Peak's View

 

Achieving meaningful, large-scale behavior change at the consumer level remains one of the most complex challenges in the pursuit of sustainability. While technological advances have enabled cleaner energy generation, one of the most impactful and immediate ways to reduce our collective carbon footprint lies in reducing energy consumption itself. We firmly align with the principle, as stated by IFC, that “the cleanest form of energy is the energy you don’t consume.” In a rapidly urbanizing India, where residential electricity demand is projected to grow substantially over the coming decade, empowering individuals with real-time insights and actionable data, leading to behavior change, is critical.

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SustLabs’ Ohm Assistant is uniquely positioned to meet this need by enabling households to monitor and optimize their energy use down to the appliance level. By driving conscious energy behaviors, the platform can help alleviate pressure on India’s electricity grid, contributing to a more resilient and sustainable energy ecosystem. Beyond energy savings, Ohm Assistant’s advanced fire detection capabilities also address vital safety concerns, creating safer homes and further demonstrating how technology can deliver multifaceted value. As India’s energy landscape evolves, SustLabs offers a timely and scalable solution that supports both environmental and social progress.

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We’re excited to lead SustLabs Pre-Series A round, and help scale the company to become one of the leading energy efficiency companies globally. We believe Kaushik, Soumya, and the rest of the SustLabs team have the ability to revolutionize the residential energy monitoring in space in India and inspire consumers to use energy more judiciously. We look forward to supporting them in their mission. If you are interested in the energy efficiency space, or the mission SustLabs is embarking on, and want to get involved, feel free to reach out to us at: team@peakventures.in.

Partner's Note: At Peak, we back solutions that take an alternate view to a common problem. Energy efficiency means different things to different people. Internally, we discuss innovations in motors, waste-heat recovery, materials & insulation, IoT - technology or process-driven solutions that can move the needle in hard-to-abate industries. Rarely, however, does behavior change get the attention it deserves. In general, energy efficiency means using less energy for the same output. In our minds, however, energy efficiency is also about the energy you don't need to consume. India's energy consumption is poised to skyrocket over the next 10 years, given higher affluence, cooling needs, growth in the economy and rapid urbanization. Reducing energy consumption at scale, by making people more aware of the non-economic costs of higher energy use, can move the needle on climate change. Sustlabs has the ability to influence the energy consumption behavior of the world's largest populous nation: that's an idea worth backing. 

Peak Sustainability Venture Fund I, a scheme of Peak Ventures Trust - an alternative investment fund which is registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) as a Category II AIF under the SEBI (AIF) Regulations, 2012 and having registration number IN/AIF2/19-20/0707. Peak Venture Advisors LLP is appointed as the investment manager of the Fund with an LLP Identification Number AAO – 2873.

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