Upheat Solutions Oy has been selected as one of 13 companies worldwide for L’AcceleratOR, L’Oréal’s flagship sustainable innovation programme, announced on 17 September 2026. The 13 pioneering companies come from eight countries. Backed by €100 million, the programme aims to identify, pilot and scale sustainable solutions of the future in climate, nature and circularity.

Upheat was selected in the advanced industrial processes category, described by L’Oréal as ”bringing energy efficiency with novel industrial heat pumps”.

Industrial process heat accounts for a large share of the fuel European industry still burns. The European Commission’s Electrification Action Plan, presented in July, estimates that around 60% of the energy industry gets from burning fuel could be replaced by electricity, with heat pumps named as one of the main options. Heat above 100°C has been the hardest part for heat pumps to reach, which is the range Upheat’s machines are built for.

”Manufacturers have wanted to get their process heat off fossil fuel for a long time. Above 100 degrees there has been nothing practical available, so we built it,” says Timo Pulkki, CEO and co-founder of Upheat. ”Industrial change needs large companies to get behind new technology. When one of this size does, the effect reaches the whole sector, and that is where the emission reductions come from.”

The 13 selected companies will enter an intensive acceleration phase led by the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) innovation team, focusing on pilot readiness. They will also have the opportunity to gain access to L’Oréal’s global resources to launch pilot projects of six to nine months, and potentially to have their solutions scaled across the group’s international operations.

About Upheat Solutions

Upheat Solutions Oy, based in Tampere, Finland, was founded by engineers and business leaders who had already transformed the industrial air compressor and chiller markets. The company builds oil-free high-temperature heat pumps that turn waste heat into process heat and steam at 100–200°C, using its own oil-free high-speed compressor technology. The units connect to existing systems and arrive tested from the factory, so installation is quick and production keeps running. Upheat’s starting point is simple: sustainability has to be profitable.

L’Oréal’s announcement of the L’AcceleratOR cohort is available at loreal.com.

More information
Timo Pulkki
CEO
timo.pulkki@upheat.com