Domna, a company that specialises in home energy efficiency and retrofit services, has announced a majority investment by funds advised by Leon Capital LLP (Leon Capital) to support its rapid expansion plans, with expected investment of up to £70 million.
Formerly known as Hestia, Domna was founded in 2023 by ex-McKinsey Partner Anna Moore (CEO) and ex-British Land and essensys leader Chenai Gondo (former COO), alongside former Exii CTO Khalim Conn-Kowlessar (CTO). It provides turnkey energy efficiency services to private and socially rented housing portfolios throughout the UK. It combines proprietary retrofit assessment software with on-site services to deliver a ‘one-stop-shop’ customer experience. Leon’s investment in Domna marks the largest first-time fundraise by a European female founding team.
The initial investment by Leon Capital, a private equity firm that partners with ambitious founders and tech-enabled services companies, will facilitate Domna’s ‘buy-and-build’ approach. This allows Domna to scale up its operations quickly in response to the acute need for residential retrofit in the UK. According to the UK Parliament’s Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, the UK has 29 million existing homes that need to be retrofitted to low carbon home energy systems by 2050.
As a result of the new funding, Domna, together with Leon Capital, is pleased to announce the acquisition of two established and experienced retrofit surveying and contracting businesses: The Warmfront Team and Osmosis ACD, as well as Domna’s proprietary predictive housing stock assessment technology and retrofit assessment software.
Established in 2012, The Warmfront Team specialises in energy efficiency surveying services and currently works with over 60 social housing associations in the UK (including 7 of the 10 largest social housing providers in the UK), representing over 900,000 homes. The majority of its work is linked to public retrofit programmes such as the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) and the Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS). The group is the largest provider of ECO assessments in UK social housing, and also serves the private-rental and owner-occupied markets.
Osmosis ACD is an independent retrofit consultancy specialising in providing PAS (Publicly Available Specifications) 2035-compliant retrofit assessment, coordination, and design to housing associations and local authorities. The majority of its work is linked to public retrofit programmes such as the Local Authority Delivery (LAD) scheme and the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund (SHDF).
The combined group already delivers approximately 15,000 domestic retrofits a year across social and private rental, multi-family and single-family homes in the UK, which equates to over 20kt CO2 a year in carbon abatement, approximately £7 million a year in fuel poverty reduction, and approximately £114 million a year added in residential property values. The combined group is now the largest specialist retrofit consultancy of its kind in UK social housing.
Anna Moore, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Domna, said, “In Leon Capital, Domna has found a forward-thinking partner that shares our commitment to raising the bar for UK housing and, in doing so, to realising the £500+ billion opportunity in UK retrofit. The synergies with Warmfront and Osmosis are clear and together we are already proving that retrofit is not only the right thing to do, but also good business. Whether you care about climate change or the standard of living, the need for action on retrofit is urgent, with homes driving 26% of total emissions in the UK and an estimated 6.5 million households living in fuel poverty. This investment allows us to reach more households, offering practical advice and rolling up our sleeves on site to make homes not only more healthy, comfortable, and energy efficient but also more valuable, with retrofits often adding over 20% to valuations.”
