Sound waves kill fires in seconds without water damage — startup raises $15M to prove it

Sonic Fire Tech, a startup developing a fire suppression system that uses sound waves instead of water or chemicals, has raised $15 million in a funding round led by The O.H.I.O. Fund with participation from Khosla Ventures. The company had previously secured a $3.5 million seed round in October.

The acoustic fire suppression system extinguishes flames within seconds, according to the company, and leaves no water or chemical residue behind. That is a significant departure from conventional fire protection methods, which have relied on water and chemicals for over a century and can cause extensive property damage and costly cleanup.

The fresh capital will be used to hire additional employees and run the battery of tests required to earn approval from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), which writes model fire codes adopted by departments across the United States. NFPA approval typically takes about three years, but co-founder and CEO Geoff Bruder told TechCrunch he expects the process to be "significantly shorter than that."

Bruder's optimism is based on the fact that Sonic Fire Tech's system does not leave a mess after a suppression event, which should speed up the testing process. In conventional lab tests, preparation can take hours and cleanup afterward is extensive. With Sonic Fire Tech's system, "they don't have to do cleanup," he said.

That advantage in the lab could translate into significant real-world benefits, especially in commercial kitchens. After a fire, restaurants often face months of cleanup and restoration, and about 75% of them never reopen, according to Remington Bixby Hotchkis, Sonic Fire Tech's COO. The sound-based system eliminates the downtime and restoration costs associated with water and chemical damage.

The company did not disclose technical details such as the frequency, power output, or effective range of the acoustic suppression system. However, the principle of using sound waves to extinguish flames is well-documented in scientific literature: specific low-frequency sound waves disrupt the flow of oxygen to the fire and can destabilize the flame front, effectively snuffing it out.

Sonic Fire Tech is based in Ohio and now faces the challenge of passing NFPA certification tests while scaling its technology for real-world deployment.