Joule
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.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2016
- HeadquartersMilan, Italy
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B and B2C
- OfferingServices
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.
Joule firmographics
Firmographics- 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
Joule industry classification
Industry- 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
Where Joule is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Milan
- HQ country
- Italy
- HQ region
- Europe
Offices4 records
Markets served
Joule business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B and B2C
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure
Revenue model
- 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.
- Monitoring Services: Real-time monitoring of energy consumption for buildings, providing consumption data, environmental impact analysis, energy certification support, and consumption containment objectives.
- Plant Installation: Installation of systems and devices including heating, cooling, water, and electrical systems. Includes geothermal, solar thermal, biomass, heat pump, and microgeneration systems.
- Extraordinary Maintenance: Maintenance services for maintaining efficiency of managed plants. Includes summer and winter air conditioning system requalification.
- Heat Accounting: Electronic heat metering system that allows individual buildings to regulate comfort temperature independently. Monthly consumption reading and allocation to apartments.
- Consulting Services: Energy consulting including analysis of customer needs, building and plant analysis, intervention proposals and estimates, regulatory updates.
- 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
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | Annual | Custom enterprise solutions for large operators and public administrations |
| Hybrid | Multi-year contract | Building administrator partnerships with financing options |
| Subscription | Monthly | Residential and small commercial monitoring |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels6 records
Joule product offering
Product offeringCore 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
Companies that use Joule
Customer profileNamed customers4 records
Segments4 records
Ideal customer profiles4 records
Joule technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration4 records
AI capability9 records
Feature5 records
Joule partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.
- Alkemy LabcoreOpen 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.
- GooglecoreGoogle Speech Recognition API powers SCALA voice assistant for speech-to-text translation. Dialogflow platform (ex api.ai) provides NLP algorithms for semantic content extraction.
- AmazoncoreAmazon 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
Joule competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect 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
Joule social profiles
Digital presenceJoule compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
Joule financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
Joule leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles1 record
Joule funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Joule M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about Joule
What does Joule do?
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.
Is Joule a public or private company?
Joule is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was Joule founded?
Joule was founded in 2016. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is Joule based?
Joule is headquartered in Milan, Italy, in the Europe region.
How does Joule make money?
Seven revenue lines are on record. Plant Management Services are the primary driver. The others are monitoring Services, plant Installation, extraordinary Maintenance, heat Accounting, consulting Services and third-Party Responsible Role.
Who are Joule's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are Kamstrup, Landis+Gyr and Itron. Regional players are A2A, Edison and Engie Italia. Broad incumbents are Siemens Smart Infrastructure, Schneider Electric, Honeywell Building Technologies and Enel (Enel X / Enel Grids).
Does Joule have an API?
No public API is recorded for Joule.
What industry is Joule in?
Joule's product category is Energy Management Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HSAPAQAF, Home Energy & EV Charging (HEMS, Smart Meters, Batteries, Chargers), with a secondary code of HSAPAQAD, Smart Climate & Air Quality (Thermostats, HVAC, Purifiers, IAQ Sensors). Its NAICS code is 334512 and its SIC code is 3823.