February 2025
We are delighted to announce that Podero has successfully raised €5.5 million in an oversubscribed seed funding round. This significant investment will accelerate the development of our platform, helping utilities navigate increasing market volatility while building stronger customer relationships through innovative energy optimization solutions.
Our Mission: Solving Energy Market Volatility
Europe’s electricity markets are experiencing unprecedented turbulence, facing regulatory pressures, new market entrants, and evolving consumer expectations. Our software platform directly addresses these issues by helping utilities reduce energy costs for flexible consumer devices, often by over 25%, as reported by Tech Funding News.
We specialize in optimizing Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) including heat pumps, electric vehicles and chargers, inverters, and home batteries. By intelligently managing these devices using market signals and real-time data, utilities can transform market disruption into competitive advantage.
Strategic Investment in Our Growth
We’re thrilled that this funding round was led by Planet A Ventures, with co-investment from Systemiq Capital and participation from our existing investors Pale Blue Dot and Push Ventures. The oversubscribed nature of this round validates the strong market demand for intelligent energy flexibility solutions.
We plan to use this funding to establish a European sales and customer success team, expand our marketing efforts, and advance product development. Our key priorities include enhancing integrations with energy devices, optimizing algorithms across more electricity markets, and developing new features that streamline utility operations.
Our Competitive Advantage
The energy sector is rapidly evolving, with utilities facing pressure to innovate or risk losing customers to more agile competitors. As our Co-founder & CEO Chris Bernkopf explained to Tech Funding News:
“Podero’s model enables utilities to roll out the best electricity contracts. Utilities are allowed to trade on the markets, and they already own the end-user relationship and have massive amounts of funds to deploy.”
This strategic positioning gives utilities a distinct advantage through our platform. “Our platform gives utilities a competitive edge in electricity pricing,” Chris told Tech Funding News. “With our device control and trading technology, they can offer lower rates that others can’t match without similar software.”
The market need for our solution is clearly demonstrated by our existing customers. Tobias Övall, Manager of Digitalization and Transformation, Retail at E.ON Nordics:
“We are seeing rapidly increasing volatility in electricity markets and new competitors. Utilities must innovate to offer products that help customers save costs and give them control over their energy usage.”
Strong Industry Validation
This funding round reflects strong investor confidence in our approach to energy market challenges. Nick de la Forge, Partner at Planet A, emphasized the market opportunity:
“Podero is tackling one of the most pressing challenges in the energy transition—helping utilities unlock the full potential of decentralised energy resources while maintaining grid stability. With strong regulatory tailwinds and increasing market volatility, the demand for intelligent flexibility solutions is higher than ever.”
The investor perspective aligns with the technical capabilities we’ve developed. Our platform currently works with over 50 manufacturers, including industry leaders like Tesla, Viessmann, and Huawei. This extensive compatibility ensures utilities can optimize a wide range of customer devices while accessing comprehensive trading capabilities across key electricity markets.
Our Comprehensive Technology Platform
What distinguishes us in the competitive landscape is our dual focus on device steering and energy trading capabilities. Our platform optimizes device operation using market signals, spot prices, and household photovoltaic production data. Additionally, we provide forecasts and trading recommendations, allowing utilities to trade aggregated device power across spot day-ahead, intraday, and balancing energy markets.
Our Vision for the Future
Looking ahead, we anticipate significant transformation in the European energy landscape. We project that renewable energy sources will dominate the market within five years, coinciding with the deployment of over 100 million new electrical devices.
This transition is expected to create greater price volatility in electricity markets, driven by increasing renewable energy production and the proliferation of flexible consumption devices. As market dynamics continue to evolve, utilities will need sophisticated solutions like our platform to remain competitive and serve customers effectively.
What’s Next for Podero
With our new funding secured, we are positioned to scale our impact across European energy markets. We will focus on expanding our team, particularly in sales and customer success, while continuing to enhance our technology platform with additional market integrations and advanced optimization features.Through our comprehensive approach to energy optimization and market trading, we are supporting the broader transition towards the world of abundant clean energy by creating the most profitable trading software for electric devices (DERs) and delivering immediate, measurable benefits for both utilities and consumers across Europe.
