Joule

What Joule does

Joule (legal entity Joule 4.0 Srl) is an Italian energy services company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Milan, with operational offices in Milan, Varese, and Cagliari. The company operates a cloud-based smart metering platform that aggregates real-time consumption data from IoT sensors across heating, water, electrical, and air-conditioning systems for both residential and industrial users. Core technology relies on open-source cloud infrastructure with sensors from more than 15 device brands, blockchain-based certification of metering data (developed since 2017), proprietary consumption-forecasting algorithms that correlate temperature, humidity, and historical usage, and the SCALA IoT device — a voice-interactive smart-home unit with environmental sensors. The platform serves four primary segments: facility managers and condominium administrators (approximately 150 relationships acting as channel intermediaries), large energy operators (~5) and medium-sized enterprises (~10), public administrations (municipalities and public institutions), and individual families in centralized-heating residential buildings. The company is bootstrapped with a €10,000 share capital, no disclosed outside funding, and an 11–50 employee range, reporting over 15,600 housing units and 3 million readings monitored as of 2024.

Name

Joule

Legal name

JOULE 4.0 Srl

Website

https://joule40.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Joule (Joule 4.0 Srl) is an Italian energy services company founded in 2016 that operates a cloud-based smart metering and energy management platform, serving facility managers, condominium administrators, enterprises, public administrations, and residential families across Italy.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Energy Management Services

NAICS

Automatic Environmental Control Manufacturing for Residential, Commercial, and Appliance Use (334512), Totalizing Fluid Meter and Counting Device Manufacturing (334514)

SIC

Industrial Instruments For Measurement, Display, And Control (3823), Auto Controls For Regulating Residential & Comml Environments (3822)

akta.pro primary industry

Home Energy & EV Charging (HEMS, Smart Meters, Batteries, Chargers) (HSAPAQAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Smart Climate & Air Quality (Thermostats, HVAC, Purifiers, IAQ Sensors) (HSAPAQAD), Meter Installation, Exchange & Field Services (EUADAFAF)

Keywords

• Smart metering services
• Energy management platform
• IoT energy monitoring
• Heat accounting services
• Consumption analytics platform

Headquarters

HQ city

Milan

HQ country

Italy

HQ region

Europe

Offices4 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Plant Management Services: Contract for operation and maintenance of heating systems from 35 kW power upwards, including third-party responsible role, portal access, mailing updates, and emergency response.
2. Monitoring Services: Real-time monitoring of energy consumption for buildings, providing consumption data, environmental impact analysis, energy certification support, and consumption containment objectives.
3. Plant Installation: Installation of systems and devices including heating, cooling, water, and electrical systems. Includes geothermal, solar thermal, biomass, heat pump, and microgeneration systems.
4. Extraordinary Maintenance: Maintenance services for maintaining efficiency of managed plants. Includes summer and winter air conditioning system requalification.
5. Heat Accounting: Electronic heat metering system that allows individual buildings to regulate comfort temperature independently. Monthly consumption reading and allocation to apartments.
6. Consulting Services: Energy consulting including analysis of customer needs, building and plant analysis, intervention proposals and estimates, regulatory updates.
7. Third-Party Responsible Role: Assuming legal responsibility for thermal systems in compliance with regional regulations (Curit-Lombardy, Bollino Verde-Piedmont). Includes online administration management.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Smart metering systems for thermal, water, electrical, and air conditioning systems, integrated with the Joule 4.0 Monitoring Platform that uses IoT sensors and blockchain-certified data for energy consumption analysis and management. Services extend from installation and device supply to ongoing plant management, monitoring, and regulatory compliance support.

Product overview

Joule offers a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on the Joule 4.0 monitoring platform for smart metering and energy management. The core platform integrates solutions for heating, water, electrical, and air conditioning systems across industrial and residential users. Key add-on modules include SCALA (IoT voice assistant with environmental sensors), heat accounting (contabilizzazione del calore) for individual temperature regulation, plant management services, third-party responsibility compliance, and technical assistance. The platform operates on cloud infrastructure using IoT sensors, open-source technologies, and blockchain for data certification.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• SCALA: The first IoT device on the Smart Home market that helps people with intelligent and ecological management of their homes. SCALA is a hands-free speaker equipped with sensors for recording home comfort, featuring voice interaction, environmental sensors, and integration with the Joule monitoring platform.

Products and services

• Joule 4.0 Monitoring Platform Central software platform that integrates IoT sensors, blockchain-certified data, AI-powered consumption forecasting, and the SCALA voice assistant for unified energy management of thermal, water, electrical, and air conditioning systems.
• SCALA IoT Device IoT metering device with voice assistant capabilities that captures consumption data from thermal, water, electrical, and air conditioning systems and feeds the Joule 4.0 platform.
• Heat Accounting Service Service that allocates heating costs across building units based on actual consumption data captured by Joule smart meters, supporting compliance with heat accounting regulations.
• Plant Management Service Ongoing management of thermal, electrical, and HVAC plants leveraging the Joule 4.0 platform for monitoring, optimization, and maintenance support.
• Third Party Responsible Service Service in which Joule assumes the role of third-party energy responsible for buildings, managing energy supply and consumption on behalf of administrators.
• Energy Consumption Monitoring Service Continuous subscription-based monitoring of energy consumption across utility types using the Joule 4.0 platform and IoT metering devices.
• Plant Requalification Service Service for upgrading and modernizing existing thermal and electrical plants, including assessment, design, and implementation.
• Consulting Services Advisory services for energy efficiency, plant design, regulatory compliance, and energy management strategy for residential, commercial, and industrial clients.
• Technical Assistance Service Ongoing technical support, troubleshooting, and maintenance for Joule platform users, IoT devices, and managed plants.

Quantifiable outcome

• Over 50% user growth between 2021 and 2024
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration4 records

AI capability9 records

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Alkemy LabcoreTechnology or Integration · 8 August 2019Open Innovation Research Lab and development partner for Joule. Developed the Alexa skill for Joule enabling voice control of energy consumption through Amazon Echo devices. Member of Open Innovation Network providing research and innovation in Big Data, AI, VR/AR, Voice & Mobile, Cloud, and IoT technologies.
• GooglecoreTechnology or IntegrationGoogle Speech Recognition API powers SCALA voice assistant for speech-to-text translation. Dialogflow platform (ex api.ai) provides NLP algorithms for semantic content extraction.
• AmazoncoreTechnology or IntegrationAmazon Polly text-to-speech service converts responses into speech for SCALA voice assistant. Amazon Echo integration enables Joule skill activation through Alexa.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Kamstrup: Danish manufacturer of smart meters for electricity, heat, cooling, and water, with a strong European footprint in district heating and apartment-level heat accounting. Highly comparable to Joule in heat-accounting, residential/apartment metering, and cloud-based consumption analytics.
• Landis+Gyr: Global leader in smart metering and grid intelligence, headquartered in Switzerland. Like Joule, Landis+Gyr provides metering infrastructure and energy management software for utilities and energy retailers, addressing electricity, heat, and water measurement with IoT-enabled endpoints — directly overlapping Joule's core smart-metering platform.
• Itron: U.S.-listed smart infrastructure and metering company serving utilities with electricity, gas, water, and heat meters plus analytics. Comparable to Joule in combining hardware metering devices with IoT-enabled consumption monitoring and SaaS-style analytics for resource optimization.

Regional players

• A2A: Multi-utility Italian company active in Lombardy (Milan-headquartered) providing electricity, gas, district heating, and energy efficiency services. Comparable as a regional incumbent in the same Italian geographies and customer segments Joule addresses.
• Edison: Major Italian energy company (part of EDF Group) with growing smart-metering and energy management offerings. Comparable as a regional incumbent operating in the same Italian market with overlapping energy operator customers.
• Engie Italia: Italian arm of French multinational Engie, active in district heating, energy services, and facility management across Northern Italy. Comparable in providing integrated energy services, metering, and plant management to public and residential customers in the same geographies Joule serves.

Broad incumbents

• Siemens Smart Infrastructure: Siemens division covering smart buildings, smart grid, and energy management. Comparable to Joule in delivering meter/sensor-based monitoring and analytics for utilities and building operators, but as part of a much broader industrial portfolio.
• Schneider Electric: Global energy management and automation leader (EcoStruxure). While broader than Joule and serving industrial/commercial customers at much larger scale, Schneider overlaps directly on smart-building energy monitoring, HEMS, and building automation analytics.
• Honeywell Building Technologies: Honeywell's building automation division provides HVAC, energy management, and IoT sensors for commercial buildings. Overlaps with Joule's HVAC monitoring, environmental sensors, and consumption analytics within a much larger enterprise-focused portfolio.
• Enel (Enel X / Enel Grids): Italy's largest utility with extensive smart metering rollouts across Italian regions and growing energy management services. Directly comparable to Joule's operations in the same geographic market and customer segments (energy operators, public administrations), but at significantly larger scale.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/Joule40
• Facebookfacebook.com/Joule4.0
• LinkedInil.linkedin.com/company/joule40

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Joule