Paul Munn

The new investment will be used to build awareness of Artus, develop the product portfolio and to grow the business globally.

Developers typically buy hundreds of units for a new office, education or healthcare building and the addressable market is £1.6 billion in Europe, plus a further £1.2 billion in the USA.

Artus units are already installed in a number of high-profile buildings, including the Centurion Lounge at Heathrow T3. Artus has offices in London and Edinburgh and plans to grow its customer-facing team to 13 over the next year.

Artus was developed by Roger Olsen, CTO of Artus, within the venture arm of Arup, a firm of specialists working across every aspect of today’s built environment. Arup Ventures develops and commercialises ideas that have transformative impact on the built environment.

Following the investment from Par, Artus will become a standalone entity but Arup will remain a significant shareholder. Artus is protected by two global patents.

Paul Munn, managing partner at Par Equity, said: “Artus brings a step-change to the HVAC industry, which has traditionally lacked new and innovative technologies.

“Its energy-efficient design helps buildings reach their net zero carbon target and the units work alongside existing infrastructure, offering flexible, low energy performance at no cost premium.

“These advantages make it easy for mechanical engineers to specify Artus and convinces us that it will be a market leader.”

Ian Rogers, global ventures lead for Arup, said: “We are immensely proud of our Ventures programme, which uses the ingenuity of Arup members to create new innovations and bring them to market.

“Artus was developed following our first call for ideas and is a fantastic example of Arup embracing new business models. We’re delighted to have worked with Par Equity to bring about this investment and look forward to seeing Artus continue to grow as a standalone business.”