Meet the Swedish firm trying to shake up heat pumps

Heat pumps, a type of reverse-refrigerator used for warming homes, are not the type of tech that gets most investors hot and bothered. They were, after all, invented in 1856. Harald Mix and Carl-Erik Lagercrantz, two Swedish financiers, see things differently.

The pair, whose investment group Vargas is behind Northvolt, a battery maker, and H2 Green Steel, which uses green hydrogen to produce steel, sense there are big bucks in replacing Europe’s many oil and gas boilers with heat pumps. Earlier this year Aira, a company founded by Vargas, launched a new product that it hopes will entice more people to make the switch. It is not only profits that are at stake.