F2A acquires Enerbee: moving into smart ventilation through acquisition

F2A, a French manufacturer of air-distribution equipment

Based in Dagneux, in the Ain department, and with almost thirty years in business, F2A designs and manufactures air-distribution and acoustic components for HVAC professionals: airflow control, air diffusion and acoustic treatment of ventilation. The industrial SME employs 200 people, with revenue of around EUR 25 million in 2021, runs three factories in France — Dagneux and Béligneux in the Ain, Saint-Ouen-sur-Iton in the Orne — and serves demanding markets: commercial buildings, tunnels and metros, energy, nuclear, marine and data centres, under ISO 9001, 14001 and 19443 certification. Its strategy: to take the turn towards indoor air quality and smart buildings by bringing in innovation — first through a development partnership, then by acquisition.

Enerbee, a Grenoble deeptech in energy harvesting

Founded in Grenoble in 2014 by Jérôme Delamare, Pierre Coulombeau and Thibault Ricart, Enerbee developed and industrialised a patented energy-harvesting technology: microgenerators able to turn even slow or irregular movements into electricity, and so replace the batteries in connected devices. It was this technology building block that, under the development partnership agreed with F2A in 2019, gave rise in early 2021 to the e·VAV, presented as the first self-powered, connected variable air volume (VAV) damper on the market. Following the deal, the start-up's team — seven people — joins F2A while remaining based in Grenoble, where, together with the acquirer's teams, it forms the group's R&D centre of excellence under the name Enerbee Technology.

What the press said

The deal was announced by both companies on 3 February 2022 and widely covered by the building and electronics trade press and the regional business press. An overview of the main publications:

Why this acquisition, and why this target

For F2A, the stakes went beyond the product: the ventilation market is shifting, driven by health awareness around indoor air quality and the rise of smart buildings, and the manufacturer wanted to position itself as owner of the technology rather than as a mere assembler. After three years of collaboration and a first joint product on the market, the acquisition permanently secures the technology building block, the team that masters it and the patents that protect it. “The acquisition of Enerbee is the final step in a long-standing partnership,” said Jean-Philippe Margrita, Managing Director of F2A, at the time of the announcement — a phrase that sums up the road travelled: the development partnership served as the best possible due diligence.

On the target side, Enerbee had an unusual profile. Its patent-protected microgenerator technology removes a concrete barrier to connected ventilation: powering motorised, communicating dampers without wiring or batteries, and therefore without maintenance, by harvesting energy from the air movement itself. Market proof already existed with the e·VAV, co-developed and launched a year before the deal. For a seven-person deeptech, backing from a manufacturer with three factories, an established sales network and certifications in the most demanding markets was the shortest path from technology to deployment — with the team kept in Grenoble becoming the R&D core of the combined business.

When industrial SMEs buy their technology shift

This deal illustrates a structural dynamic in HVAC: indoor air quality, now a public-health issue, and the energy performance of buildings — environmental regulation, the spread of building management systems — are pulling demand towards ventilation that is controlled, measured and frugal. In this market, value is migrating from the component to embedded intelligence; equipment makers that do not integrate this layer risk commoditisation, and acquiring technology building blocks is becoming for industrial SMEs what in-house R&D is for large groups.

The deal also tells a story of French regional complementarity: a deeptech from Grenoble's microelectronics ecosystem finds its industrial outlet fifty kilometres away, at an SME in the Ain that secures its future — headcount retained, Grenoble base maintained, R&D budget raised to more than 5% of revenue. For a published overall amount of more than EUR 1 million including the development programme, the manufacturer opens up new growth drivers in export markets and across all building segments: a short circuit for innovation, from lab bench to factory.

Collaboration Capital's added value as buy-side adviser

On this deal, Collaboration Capital acted as buy-side adviser. A technology acquisition of this kind plays out in four stages, and the quality of the final outcome — the right building block, properly secured, with a team that stays — depends on the rigour brought to each of them.