Today, heating and cooling account for around 15% of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, with cooling demand expected to triple by 2050. The AI boom is adding significant pressure: data centres dedicate 37% of their energy to cooling, and as rack density grows at an unprecedented pace, thermal management is fast becoming the binding constraint on AI performance. Traditional vapour-compression systems are hitting thermodynamic limits, creating a massive and urgent incentive to make cooling systems more efficient. Furthermore, vapour compression systems still rely on refrigerant gases that continuously leak, creating high maintenance costs and leaving users frustrated and out-of-pocket.  

Why Barocal’s technology offers the ideal solution  

Barocal is led by Prof. Xavier Moya, a leading materials researcher, who has spent over 15 years researching this space. With Barocal, he has achieved what scientists have struggled to do for decades: a materials breakthrough that delivers solid-state materials that finally enable a new cooling and heating platform technology that competes with vapour-based incumbents.  

Instead of cycling volatile refrigerant gases, Barocal uses pressure-driven phase transitions in solid crystals to generate large temperature changes. It eliminates leakage and targets up to 3x higher efficiency than century-old incumbent systems.

The company is offering customers the opportunity to simultaneously cut waste, costs and emissions. It promises no leakage and ultra-low heating/cooling emissions due to eliminating refrigerant gases. And it is commercialising at the right moment in the cost curve. Barocal’s rapid hardware iteration cycles are already driving down formerly high production costs by utilising low-cost input materials and standardised components. 

Prof. Moya and his team are taking their patented scientific breakthrough and are building a product that can deliver at cost parity with incumbent systems.

An unrivalled Cambridge talent and an enormous market to tap into

Barocal’s team is a major reason we are excited. 

Prof. Moya is a globally recognised pioneer in caloric materials - there is no better scientific mind to be leading commercial innovation in this area. And he is supported by a growing team, anchored by CTO Giles Rodway, who brings decades of experience in automotive industrial R&D and mass manufacturing to bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial product.

As investors, we know that this combination of deep technical originality alongside industrial execution is exactly what is needed to bridge the gap between academic discovery and commercial deployment. Barocal wields the ideal team to tap a ~$450 billion global HVAC market expected to surge to ~$577 billion by 2033

The company will now use its $10M Seed funding from this World Fund-led round to make further key hires and accelerate system development ahead of commercial deployment. We could not be prouder or more excited to be backing Prof. Moya and the Barocal team as they scale and replace incumbent, polluting, outdated heating and cooling infrastructure. 

If you have any questions or you’re a founder operating in this space, please get in touch with us at mark@worldfund.vc and robin@worldfund.vc.