It Started With a Sweltering Studio Apartment
Coolizi AC was born in 2018 in a 380 square foot studio in Austin, Texas. Our founder, Dr. Lena Whitmore, spent her postdoctoral years studying residential energy consumption and discovered something that nagged at her: the air conditioning industry had optimised for new construction, leaving renters, apartment dwellers, students, and frequent movers with second-tier solutions. Window units leaked. Portable units were loud. Mini-splits required professional installation that landlords often refused.
The first Coolizi prototype was assembled on Lena's kitchen table using a salvaged inverter compressor from a commercial refrigerator, an off-the-shelf fan, and a 3D printed housing. It was ugly, but it dropped the temperature in her apartment by 14 degrees Fahrenheit while drawing less than 300 watts. Within six months, three of her colleagues had ordered their own units, and the decision to build a company was no longer a question.
"We did not want to build another appliance. We wanted to build the first climate control product that respected the realities of modern renters, students, and remote workers." — Dr. Lena Whitmore, Founder & CEO
What We Believe About Climate Comfort
Three principles guide every engineering decision we make, from the diameter of the air outlet to the colour of the carry handle. They are not slogans. They are constraints we apply to every drawing, prototype, and finished unit before it earns the Coolizi name.
Respect the Tenant
No drilling, no permanent fixtures, no landlord negotiations. Every Coolizi AC works in any room with a standard electrical outlet.
Respect the Grid
Energy efficiency is not a marketing line. Our inverter platform is engineered to draw the minimum power necessary for the actual cooling demand.
Respect the Eardrum
A climate unit you cannot sleep next to is a climate unit that fails at its most important job. Acoustic engineering sits at the centre of our design process.
From Kitchen Table To Eight Thousand Homes
The first commercially available Coolizi AC shipped in the autumn of 2021 to a list of 312 customers who had followed the project since the prototype stage. By the end of that first production run we had received 1,840 detailed customer reviews, and the average rating had stabilised at 4.7 out of 5. We learned more from those first reviews than we had from the eighteen months of laboratory testing that preceded them.
Three years later, Coolizi AC units are in active use in 8,400 households across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. We have expanded the engineering team to twenty-one specialists, opened our second research facility in Eindhoven, and shipped our fourth-generation inverter platform. The kitchen table prototype is now framed in our lobby. We still look at it whenever we are tempted to compromise.
Five Years Of Patient Iteration
First Prototype Assembled
Kitchen table build in Austin, Texas using a salvaged inverter compressor. 14 degree temperature drop in a 380 square foot studio apartment.
Seed Funding Closed
$2.4 million seed round led by a coalition of clean-tech angel investors. Team expands to six full-time engineers and a contract industrial designer.
First Production Run Ships
312 units delivered to founding customer list. Average first-year review: 4.7 out of 5 across 1,840 verified customer reviews.
Second Generation Released
Refined inverter platform, R32 refrigerant transition, sleep mode reduced to 38 dB. Sales expand to Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
Fourth Generation & 8,400 Households
Current Coolizi AC platform reaches 8,400 active households. Eindhoven research facility opened to focus on next-generation heat pump integration.
Where We Are Headed
The next chapter of Coolizi AC is being written in our Eindhoven laboratory, where a fifteen-person team is working on direct integration with residential solar inverters and small-format battery systems. The goal is straightforward: a portable climate unit that can run for the majority of a typical day from a single 400 watt solar panel, with no grid power required.
We expect the first field trials of the solar-integrated platform to begin with selected customers in the second half of 2026. As always, we will share what we learn honestly, including the failures, because that is how good products get built. If our story so far has been a useful reference for your own home, we would love to hear from you. Our customer care team reads every message.
