Reservoir raises $8M for smart grid-integrated water heaters
Original: Reservoir raises $8M to make water heaters that people — and the grid — will actually want
Why This Matters
Smart water heaters represent a scalable, distributed grid flexibility asset as electrification accelerates.
Reservoir, a Boston-based startup co-founded by Luke Winston-Almanzar, Gabriel Parisi-Amon, and Jake Felser, raised $8M in a seed round led by Asymmetric Capital Partners to deploy smart heat pump water heaters that optimize energy use and support grid stability.
Reservoir announced an $8 million seed round led by Asymmetric Capital Partners, with participation from Founder Collective and MCJ. The Boston-area startup builds AI-enabled heat pump water heaters designed to reduce household energy costs while supporting grid demand response programs.
Co-founder and CEO Luke Winston-Almanzar, formerly Chief Business Officer at 3D printing firm Formlabs, launched Reservoir after observing that water heaters account for roughly 18% of a household's total energy budget yet remain largely unintelligent devices. Reservoir's unit spends its first month learning occupant usage patterns to train a predictive heating model, then runs its heat pump during off-peak, low-cost electricity windows.
The heat pump technology is nearly four times more efficient than a standard electric water heater and five times more efficient than a natural gas unit. Reservoir has installed approximately 100 devices to date and targets around 1,000 installations by end of 2027 — a scale Winston-Almanzar describes as 'megawatt-scale capacity.' The company plans to aggregate its fleet for utility demand response programs, using those payments to offset consumer pricing. Initial deployment is focused on the greater Boston market.