Corus

Air conditioners break down. Nobody sees it coming.

Corus built a small device called the Vigil that watches air conditioning and heating systems around the clock. It tracks 27 different measurements and sends alerts to the company that services the equipment, not after something breaks, but weeks or months before it happens.

The repair company can fix the problem on a Tuesday morning in April instead of scrambling on a Saturday night in July.

What happens between repair visits

Most air conditioning systems get checked twice a year - once in the spring, once in the fall. A technician shows up, looks at the equipment, changes a filter, and leaves. That is two days of attention out of the whole year. The other 363 days, nobody is watching.

Problems build up slowly. Refrigerant leaks a little at a time. Motors start to wear down. A small electrical part gets weaker over months. None of that is obvious during a quick check-up. It shows up on the hottest day of the summer as an emergency — exactly when every repair company is already booked solid.

Vince Trotta, who runs sales for Corus, spent two nights in a hotel with his wife and an unimpressed cat during a summer heat wave. Their air conditioner quit and the house got too hot to stay in. The cause was a start capacitor, a part that costs about $45. It had been getting weaker for weeks, and nobody was watching. The repair company couldn’t come because every truck was already out. The Vigil is built to catch exactly that.

A problem everyone feels but nobody has solved

Emergency repair calls are how most HVAC companies meet new customers. But emergency work is terrible business. It shows up during heat waves when every truck is already out. It disappears in the spring and fall when the company has nothing to do.

Every single customer interview described the same desire: less reactive, more stable and predictable income throughout the year. About 22.5 million of the 98 million systems in the country have a service plan - roughly one in four.

The companies know steady plan revenue is the answer. They have never had a new reason to offer a customer.

It is not just repair companies feeling the pain. Property management companies — the ones running office buildings, medical centers, and vacation rentals — take the blame when the air conditioning goes out. A hot conference room. A production line that shuts down. A walk-in cooler that loses everything inside it. Their whole job is making sure buildings run smoothly. When something breaks, it looks like they failed, and their customers start looking for a replacement.

How the Vigil works

The Vigil is a small box that connects to an air conditioning or heat pump system. A technician installs it in about 30 minutes without cutting into any sealed parts. The manufacturer’s warranty stays valid .

This is the biggest concern most repair companies have.

It watches 27 different measurements across five areas: the refrigerant system, the electrical system, the air temperature and humidity, motor vibrations, and safety alarms. It learns how each specific unit actually runs, instead of just comparing it to the factory numbers on its label.

A slow leak. A dirty coil. The first signs of a compressor wearing out. All of it shows up months before the system fails, when it can be fixed on a regular work day instead of an emergency.

There is no screen on the device. Everything goes straight to the internet, and the repair company sees it on a computer or a phone. Every unit shows as green, yellow, or red. Red means something urgent, and it sends a notification right away. Yellow means a unit needs attention soon - a reminder to schedule a visit before the problem gets worse. This software is running today in an early beta version, and it gets better every week.

Corus is also working toward sending alerts straight into ServiceTitan, a program many HVAC shops already use to run their day. That connection is planned but not built yet.

Corus has started the process of applying to their marketplace.

Why so many measurements matter

One pressure reading can tell you something is wrong. But add in temperature, electrical current, and outdoor conditions, and now you can tell the repair company exactly what the problem is before the truck even leaves the shop. That is the difference between fixing it in one trip instead of two.

The Vigil runs the complicated math automatically. Most technicians skip it when they are in a hurry. A basic sensor can tell you a building is not cooling. It cannot tell you whether the filter is clogged or the refrigerant is low. Getting that wrong means the wrong part ends up on the truck, and the technician has to come back a second time.

Nobody replaces a system because of a leak. They replace it because the leak was never found.

The compressor is the heart of the system. The refrigerant flowing through it keeps it cool and carries its oil back to it. When a slow leak drops the refrigerant level, the compressor starts running hot and short on oil. It can take months to fail. By the time the building stops cooling, the damage is done, and a repair has turned into a replacement.

How the money works

The HVAC repair company is the customer. They pay $99 per system when the Vigil is installed, then $20 per month after that, with a one-year minimum. The repair company never buys the device.

Corus owns it for the life of the subscription. The building owner does not deal with Corus at all. The repair company just adds monitoring to the service plan they already sell.

This is why adoption should be straightforward. Corus is not asking anyone to have a new conversation with their customers. The service plan already exists. The Vigil adds one line to it.

The hardware pays for itself quickly

The usual worry with a hardware company is that every new customer costs money up front. The $99 setup fee solves most of that. A Vigil costs about $120 to build. The setup fee covers roughly 80 percent on installation day, leaving about $21 to recover.

Roughly one month of the $20 subscription. Against $240 per year of recurring revenue, it looks like a setup fee plus a subscription, not a hardware business.

The setup fee can be adjusted. Waive it to land a 25-unit deal. Cut it for a limited-time promotion. The $20 monthly price never changes. That is the number that determines the company’s value, so it is the one number that stays fixed.

The customers are already out there

There are roughly 98 million air conditioning and heat pump systems in the United States, serviced by about 117,000 HVAC companies. In any town of 5,000 people or more, there are about 25 repair companies with almost nothing to tell them apart. Around 22.5 million of those systems already have a service plan - that is the market the Vigil is priced for.

Corus sells to whoever holds the service contract.

Right now that means companies with a lot of systems to look after: contractors with big service books, building managers, and companies that cover repair costs themselves.

The Vigil works on any air conditioning or heat pump system. Corus starts where the systems are grouped together, because winning one company brings hundreds of systems with it.

Four things changed at once

New government rules, expensive refrigerant, a shortage of technicians, and a wave of companies buying up HVAC businesses all happened at the same time.

The Vigil helps with all four: it detects leaks of new flammable refrigerant, it saves labor by reducing emergency calls, and it creates the kind of steady subscription income that makes a repair business worth more when it is time to sell.

What Corus is up against

The biggest competitor is not another company. It is the way things have always been done: two visits a year, paper records, and waiting for things to break. That approach costs nothing to keep using and has enormous momentum. Showing people the 363-day blind spot is most of the sales job.

SmartAC.com is the closest direct competitor and further along commercially. That is actually good news — it proves the market exists. The difference is depth. Wireless sensors and a thermostat give you an early warning. Twenty-seven hardwired measurements give you a specific diagnosis. CoolAutomation reads the error messages a system has already produced, which is a different problem.

The real long-term threat comes from manufacturers building monitoring apps that go directly to homeowners and cut out the repair company. That is exactly why repair companies want an independent device they control.

Why a copycat can’t just show up

Someone could build similar hardware. They cannot copy the repair companies already using the Vigil, and they cannot copy years of performance data on the exact systems those companies service.

There is a deeper lock-in. Private equity firms are buying up HVAC service businesses, and they pay more for businesses with steady subscription income than for businesses that live on one-time emergency calls. Every unit monitored by the

Vigil makes the repair company’s business worth more when they sell. They are not going to cancel the thing that is raising their price tag.

How Corus finds customers

One repair company or facilities operator manages dozens to thousands of systems. Winning one is not a single sale. It is an account that keeps growing with every new service contract and every new installation.

Two types of customers reach the same market. HVAC repair companies watch the equipment they service. Property management companies watch the equipment they are responsible for. Both pay the same price, and a repair company already using the Vigil becomes the natural partner for a building manager who signs up.

This round feeds that cycle directly. Pilot customers are invited to invest in the community round.

The first customers are already on board

Four companies have signed up, and the first ten paid units go onto commercial rooftops in early October. Some are HVAC repair companies. Some look after buildings for their customers. One came as a referral from another, which is the first sign that word gets around.

The people behind Corus

Todd Gentry has degrees in electrical engineering and marketing from Kansas State. The same person designing the sensor system is the one writing the business plan. This is his third company.

The first was bought in 1997 and led to him running a division of the buyer. The second sold products into Walmart, Sam’s Club, Kroger, Ace, True Value, and Menards before he sold its main product line in 2013.

Outside companies build the hardware and software under work-for-hire contracts. Corus owns every design and all the intellectual property. Manufacturing sits within 20 miles of Wichita on purpose. That is why the supply chain has zero tariff risk, and why confirmed production capacity is about 20,000 units per month.

Where things stand right now

Corus is early revenue — the first ten paid units deploy in October. The hardware is real and already tracks all 27 measurements. The software is running too, in an early beta version: the dashboard, the green-yellow-red status for each unit, and the alerts. The Corus team will also check the pilot data by hand while the software proves itself. Two things are not built yet: matching a problem to the exact part a technician needs, and connecting to programs like ServiceTitan. Customer retention rates are unknown — measuring them is one of the reasons the pilots exist.

This round pays for three things: professional software engineers to take the beta to a finished product — tighter security, more reliability, and the groundwork to connect with programs like ServiceTitan — plus a production mold for the device’s case and a custom circuit board to replace the prototype hardware. A follow-up investment round of about $2 million is planned after this one. That round will set the company’s official value, fund the sales team, and convert the SAFE notes from this round into actual ownership shares.

The machines that cool the world are running blind. Corus is building the missing information layer for air conditioning, and putting it in the hands of the people who fix the equipment, not the companies that made it. If that is something you want to own a piece of, this is the round to do it.