Lookthrough Shines in ABB Startup Challenge: Revolutionizing Smart Buildings
In the race to decarbonize real estate, Swiss startup Lookthrough emerged as a standout winner in the 2025 ABB Startup Challenge, securing the top spot in the Electrification Smart Buildings track. It will integrate seamlessly with ABB’s InSite energy management cloud platform, InSite Energy Pro, and AI-powered features like sustainability dashboards and reporting, retrofit planning, and real estate decarbonization strategies. This combined solution transforms how building owners approach energy efficiency, retrofit planning, and long-term asset optimization. The ABB Startup Challenge, now in its sixth year, is a global platform organized by ABB in collaboration with SynerLeap, Microsoft, and other industry leaders, fostering practical, scalable solutions for energy, electrification, and sustainability.
Lookthrough’s Winning Solution
The 2025 challenge asked a critical question: How can building owners move beyond merely monitoring energy data to leveraging it for smarter, more sustainable decisions? Lookthrough answered with a platform that empowers owners to visualize real-time building performance, model retrofit strategies, and map out decarbonization journeys with full transparency and scalability.
“We believe innovation must go beyond compliance checklists,” says Marcel Staub, CEO of Lookthrough. “Our platform helps owners see decarbonization as a strategic advantage, enhancing asset value, resilience, and sustainability all at once.” By integrating with ABB’s ecosystem, Lookthrough’s solution ensures that data-driven insights translate into actionable outcomes, making buildings more efficient and future-ready.
A Launchpad for Real-World Impact
The ABB Startup Challenge is designed to bridge the gap between innovative ideas and industrial deployment. Unlike typical pitch competitions, it focuses on real challenges defined by ABB’s business units, ensuring solutions are practical and customer-focused. For Lookthrough, winning the Smart Buildings track unlocked a suite of opportunities:
- A paid MVP collaboration project with ABB
- Access to SynerLeap, ABB’s startup accelerator
- Mentorship from ABB and Microsoft experts
- Visibility across ABB’s global customer network
- Potential for long-term partnerships
These resources position Lookthrough to scale its solution across industries, turning their vision into reality. “The ABB Startup Challenge doesn’t just spark innovation, it accelerates it,” Staub notes. “It’s a unique opportunity to collaborate with a global leader like ABB and bring transformative ideas to market
Why Lookthrough’s Win Matters
Decarbonizing real estate is no longer a choice, it’s a necessity. With rising energy costs, stricter regulations, and growing tenant demand for sustainable spaces, building owners face mounting pressure to act. Yet, navigating this complex landscape without the right tools can be overwhelming. Lookthrough’s platform addresses this challenge head-on, offering a clear, scalable path to efficiency and transparency.
A Blueprint for the Future
The ABB Startup Challenge proves that innovation thrives when it’s practical, collaborative, and focused on impact. By connecting startups with ABB’s expertise and global reach, it’s not just shaping the future of energy, it’s building it, one scalable solution at a time.
The intelligent design of ABB Smart EMS prioritizes the operation of energy-intensive devices, ensuring that energy is used when it's most cost-effective. With just a few taps on your smartphone, you can make adjustments according to your preferences, leading to significant reductions in utility bills over time.
“The ABB Startup Challenge enables us to identify talented entrepreneurs and nurture the fresh thinking that is needed to address key energy issues. ABB and startups have complementary capabilities, so we can support each other with insights and expertise to develop new and innovative solutions and business models,” said Massimo Muzzì, Head of Strategy, Business Development and Sustainability, ABB Electrification.
“We are actively seeking long-term collaborations and investment with startups as part of our open innovation strategy. Our startup challenges are incredibly important to ABB. More than a quarter of the US$80m ABB Electrification has invested in startups since 2020 has been spent on solutions that we’ve identified and developed through our annual competitions.”
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