Our Story /// Company History
You have a lot in common with your air conditioner. Your heart pumps blood through your veins into your lungs, just as your air conditioner pumps refrigerant through pipes into heat exchangers. Air conditioners breath by using a fan to blow air over these heat exchangers in order to cool a building. The problem with your air conditioner is that it can’t breath and its heart is a long way from its lungs. Its components are inefficient and they don’t work well together, resulting in a big, loud, and power-hungry machine. Incremental improvements have been made in order to increase the efficiency of the vapor-compression design over the past several decades yet, meaningful performance and efficiency gains remain stagnant.
Room air conditioning alone will contribute 25% or more to global temperature rise by the end of the century due to an increased demand of low-efficiency air conditioners throughout the developing world. In 2014, former U.S. Naval Academy roommates Matt Miller and Dan Poirier cofounded Nativus in order to meaningfully impact climate change by addressing the deficiencies of present-day air conditioners. Nativus technology enables air conditioners to achieve higher performance and improved efficiency through a system-wide architectural redesign. Our lungs (heat exchangers) are built around our heart (compressor) and are linked together through a network of veins (refrigerant tubes) to create an air conditioner architecture mimicking our body’s efficiency. Our cooling solution is purpose-built to attack climate change through drastic efficiency improvements, combined with breakthrough manufacturing methods with a focus on scalability and affordability.
Nativus has received support from the California Energy Commission's CalSEED program in 2018 as well as an SBIR Phase I & II Award through the National Science Foundation in 2020.
management Team & advisors
Matt received his Bachelor of Science degree in Astrospace Engineering from the US Naval Academy. After commissioning, he served aboard a ship where he was responsible for shipboard auxiliary and refrigeration systems. Upon leaving active duty, Matt founded GBL Geothermal, a leading energy consultancy, where he designed all-electric, sustainable heating and cooling systems. Matt is a LEED Professional and former member of Nevada’s Energy Efficiency Strike Force.
Matt Miller, CEO & Co-Founder
Dan holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the US Naval Academy, and an Executive MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management. While in the Navy, he served as a Weapons Systems Officer with an F/A-18 Hornet squadron. Dan successfully managed multiple aircraft maintenance divisions and led numerous carrier flight operations and combat missions over Afghanistan and Iraq as a Mission Commander. Dan currently manages Nativus' day-to-day operations, including business development and fundraising.
Dan Poirier, COO & Co-Founder
Jon Wellinghoff is known for his international expertise and thought leadership in energy policy, electric markets and the interface of disruptive energy systems with traditional utility structures. His firm GridPolicy, Inc. is dedicated to furthering the deployment of and investment in clean sustainable distributed energy resources (DERs). Jon works to remove regulatory, policy, and institutional barriers to the widespread adoption of cost effective DER technologies and systems, assisting companies, governments, and consumers who market and/or operate such resources. In 2006, Jon received his first of two Presidential appointments to serve as a Commissioner on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), and was FERC’s longest serving Chairman (2009- 2013). During his FERC tenure, he led efforts to make the U.S. power system cleaner and more efficient by promoting and integrating renewable energy, demand response, energy efficiency and storage.