Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Justairtech: We develop a cooling system that uses air as a refrigerant and saves 80 percent energy compared to conventional systems. The problem with cooling is that it is necessary for many processes, but due to high energy consumption and CO2e emissions, it itself contributes significantly to global warming. The same applies to heating and air conditioning. Our solution is a building block to achieve climate neutrality in Europe by 2050 and keep global warming in check.
Economical use of air as a refrigerant through innovation
Munich Startup: But that already exists!
Justairtech: That’s true – air as a refrigerant has been used for a long time, but so far hardly economically. Currently, there is no cooling or air conditioning system with air as a refrigerant on the market. Only in the freezing sector does a Czech startup offer a solution. We achieve the economical use of air as a refrigerant through several innovations. The two cornerstones are two highly efficient and low pressure loss heat exchangers with a novel fractal design. They are manufactured additively and, due to their very fine helical structure, have many times the surface area of a conventional heat exchanger. Our cooling system will be 4–5 times more efficient than comparable state-of-the-art systems.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Justairtech: Holger initially worked on water cooling. In his previous startup Efficient Energy, a cooling machine was developed that cools with water – but achieves approximately double the efficiency of previous cooling machines. However, what was underestimated: they wanted to develop the system and purchase components from industry. However, the industry had no experience whatsoever with water vapor in rough vacuum, so the components had to be developed in-house. And that simply took too long and was too expensive.
So he thought of something different, came up with air – and founded Justairtech together with Jens. Jens and Holger know each other from Efficient Energy and knew that with very different profiles and competencies they would make a good founding team.
From prototype to market readiness: challenges and next steps
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Justairtech: Our biggest challenge was the implementation of the 3D-printed heat exchangers in the 25kW version. In 2021, we still needed 19 days of printing time for a small piece of the heat exchanger – economical production is still a long way off. The main reason was the very fine and complex structures that required very special parameter sets for printing, which in turn meant a huge amount of data to be transferred. Together with EOS, we were able to successfully solve this in two years
of development cooperation and can now print the 25kW heat exchangers in approximately 24 hours. Installed in the first system prototype, we can now also demonstrate that the overall concept of the system works.
Munich Startup: Where do you want to be in one year, where in five years?
Justairtech: In one year, we want to place two beta-test systems in data centers and begin field tests during the course of the year. In the next five years, our market entry is planned and ramp-up begins – by then, we still have significant development work ahead of us and need to continue building our team. We are initially focusing on data centers, but will then also move into precision cooling, process cooling, and later also heating and air conditioning.
Munich offerings mainly for young teams
Munich Startup: How have you experienced the startup location Munich so far?
Justairtech: There are many great offers for founders here – however, they are mainly aimed at very young teams and we have two very experienced founders, so honestly we hardly use any of them. The academic network certainly benefits us, on the one hand in terms of cooperation opportunities, and on the other hand in terms of graduates in technical fields.
Munich Startup: Risk or security?
Justairtech: Risk is inherent to a completely new technical development. But by now we have been able to eliminate many and for the remaining ones there are strategies to mitigate them or what we would do in case they occur.
Security, on the other hand, we definitely want in the areas of personnel and financing – we can do without the thrills there.
