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Roby
Techstars '18Seattle, US · Founded 2017 · 25 employees on LinkedIn · 2 known investors
Find your way into Roby
Seattle-based Roby builds workplace software that automates HVAC scheduling, help desk requests and reception tasks.
Also known as Roby HVAC · Team Roby
Investors · 2
How we know: the Techstars portfolio · open dataset · Top 3000 Accelerator Startups (no YC) 2026-08 · Not right? Tell us
Company profile
researched Sep 2026Roby is a Seattle-based software company whose current lead product automates heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) scheduling in commercial buildings. The software runs on a building management system (BMS) server and connects to room calendars, switching rooms into unoccupied mode when they are not booked. The company frames the resulting benefits as reduced HVAC runtime hours, no added operational work for building staff, and longer equipment life through less unnecessary usage.
Alongside the HVAC product, Roby offers Roby-Receptionist and Roby Helpdesk. Earlier material describes Roby as chat- and voice-enabled software that handles employee requests, automates repetitive tasks and reduces resolution time, covering use cases such as employee Q&A, room booking, facility requests and IT support, with a Slack integration, ticket queues, ticket assignment between admins, and dashboards providing logs of ticket history so support teams and supervisors can monitor resolution rate and time. The stated mission is to automate building services and engage employees with their office environment, making workplace operations safe, personalized and efficient.
The company is categorized across commercial real estate, enterprise applications, smart building, SaaS, productivity tools and virtual assistant segments.
Founding story
Jay Hsueh is listed as co-founder and CEO.
Business model
Roby sells software to organizations that operate offices and commercial buildings. For the HVAC product it uses a staged commercial process: an expert evaluation with a 30-minute Q&A and a saving-estimation model, a 30-minute session to validate control programming, then a one-to-two month pilot, after which pricing is proposed based on pilot data before a rollout plan is agreed with the customer's team. The website also includes a dealer login, indicating a channel/partner route alongside direct sales.
Pricing for the HVAC offering is ROI-based and set after a pilot, using data from that pilot; savings are measured by the reduction in HVAC runtime hours.
Traction
Locations listed include SoDo Seattle, the University of Washington and other Seattle-area sites; the company is listed at 11-50 employees.
Latest developments
The company website, dated 2023, centers on the Roby HVAC scheduling product and its evaluation-and-pilot commercial process, with Roby-Receptionist and Roby Helpdesk listed as additional offerings.
▸Full profile — market position, technology, go-to-market, geography, history
Market position
An early-stage smart-building and workplace-operations software vendor, listed among Techstars portfolio companies with 11-50 employees.
Roby positions its HVAC scheduling on measurability and low operational overhead: savings are tracked directly as reduced HVAC runtime hours, no additional procedures are required of stakeholders, and pricing is tied to validated pilot results.
Technology
Software that installs on a BMS server and integrates with room calendar systems to drive unoccupied-mode setpoints automatically. The workplace assistant products are chat- and voice-enabled, integrate with Slack, and provide ticketing with message queues, assignment to other admins, automated notifications on resolution, a searchable workspace response library, and dashboards of ticket history.
Go-to-market
Direct engagement through demo bookings and a contact-driven evaluation-then-pilot sequence, supported by a dealer login on the company site and a Japanese-language version of the website. The team has included a business development director and a customer success specialist.
Operators and facility teams of commercial office buildings that run a BMS and use room calendars, plus workplace, support and IT teams handling employee requests.
Geography
Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States, with listed locations in SoDo and at the University of Washington; the website is offered in Japanese as well as English, and the team has included Japan-oriented business development and customer success staff.
History
Founded in 2017 and based in Seattle, Roby participated in Techstars as a 2018 company. Its early product was a Slack-connected workplace help desk and virtual assistant for employee requests, room booking, facility requests and IT support, with a chat demo site carrying a 2019 copyright. By 2023 the website led with Roby HVAC, automated HVAC scheduling via BMS and room-calendar integration, while continuing to list Roby-Receptionist and Roby Helpdesk as offerings.
Compiled by commissioned research from 8 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Competitors · 3
by search overlap
Companies competing with Roby for the same Google search keywords, organic and paid, via search-intersection analysis.
Timeline · 2
launches, deals, and filingsRoby's website presents software that runs on a BMS server, connects to room calendars and sets rooms to unoccupied mode when not in use, offered through an evaluation and pilot process, alongside Roby-Receptionist and Roby Helpdesk.
Roby is identified as a Techstars 2018 company on its own about page and on the Techstars job board.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
▸Research sources · 8
primary sources listed
- Robytellroby.com · web
8 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Roby do?
- Seattle-based Roby builds workplace software that automates HVAC scheduling, help desk requests and reception tasks.
- Who are Roby's investors?
- Roby's investors include SeaChange, Techstars.
- Where is Roby headquartered?
- Roby is headquartered in Seattle, US.