Watsco Ventures

Watsco Ventures is the corporate venture, incubation and partnerships arm of Miami-based Watsco, Inc., the largest distributor of air conditioning, heating and refrigeration equipment and related parts and supplies in the HVAC/R industry. Established in 2014, Watsco Ventures sits inside a broader technology organization of roughly 300 technologists that has been built up under President Aaron (A.J.) Nahmad, son of Watsco's founder and longtime Chairman and CEO Albert H. Nahmad. The unit pursues a vertical-CVC playbook unusual for the HVAC distribution business: rather than indexing on financial returns, it identifies, incubates, acquires, partners with and invests in software, IoT and AI products that Watsco can distribute to its tens of thousands of HVAC/R contractor customers across North America, generally as a co-investor. Sector focus spans SaaS and web marketplaces, e-commerce and retail tooling, IoT and wearables, AI and big data, and contractor-facing fintech. The active product portfolio includes OnCall Air, a digital point-of-sale platform that helps contractors sell in the home and has generated more than $1.5 billion in customer sales through the network; Credit for Comfort, a consumer-financing solution for residential HVAC purchases; and the Alert Labs / Sentree IoT line that remotely monitors residential A/C systems, water leaks and flood events, with Alert Labs acquired by Watsco in October 2018 after originating as a Watsco Ventures collaboration. The unit also maintains commercial relationships with adjacent contractor SaaS platforms. By building and distributing technology to its contractor network, Watsco Ventures backs the digital tools transforming the HVAC/R industry.