NuuEnergy, an energy startup founded in 2023 in Munich, has successfully completed a pre-seed financing round worth millions. Investors include the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), the Business Angel Club Better Ventures – including energy entrepreneur Marco Vogt – as well as EnjoyVenture, Vireo Ventures and Bynd. The goal of the financing is to accelerate the founding and expansion of regional specialist trade businesses and to further digitalize the entire process from individual planning through installation to maintenance.
The background to the business idea is a pressing challenge of the energy transition: the switch to heat pumps in Germany has so far progressed only slowly. Reasons for this include unreliable installers, high planning effort and unclear cost structures. While many digital providers focus primarily on rapid growth and sales, traditional trades often lack the resources for individual advice and planning.
NuuEnergy positions itself in this tension as an integrated provider: the company combines the advantages of digital processes with the customer proximity and technical expertise of regional trade businesses.
“Our customers want a local contact who guides them through the entire process – with the highest quality in planning, installation and service. That’s exactly what we offer with our regional businesses and digitalized planning”,
explains Tobias Klug, co-founder and CEO of NuuEnergy, describing his company’s business model.
Regional trade businesses as the core of the model
At the heart of the business model is the development of own, regionally anchored specialist businesses that are fully integrated into NuuEnergy’s organizational structure. Through this vertical integration, the various process steps – from initial consultation through software-supported planning and subsidy processing to installation and maintenance – are to be efficiently and customer-oriented implemented.
“We are the answer of German craftsmanship to the big digital players who only care about sales but put quality on the back burner”,
is confident Julia Rafschneider, co-founder and CRO of NuuEnergy. She adds:
“Our tradespeople are not service providers, they are the heart of our company. They are the experts, they plan, install and do excellent work – we provide the processes and technology to support them as best we can.”
Investors also see this hybrid model as a promising concept for scaling the heat pump market in Germany. Johannes Weber, principal at HTGF, says:
“Every house is different and making renovation scalable is a challenge. With NuuEnergy, we see the first convincing solution where, working hand-in-hand with the trades, a model emerges with which millions of houses can switch to heat pumps without sacrificing quality.”
With the fresh capital, NuuEnergy now wants to further expand its regional structures while advancing the digitalization of processes.
