17 October, 2024
Reonic raises €13 million to help small installers of green tech like heat pumps and solar panels
European regulators are pushing hard for greener energy. The REPowerEU plan calls for 10 million additional heat pumps to be added by 2027, and solar panels are also on the rise.
But most installations are done by small businesses that could be more productive with better work processes.
This is where German startup Reonic comes in. “We give renewable installers the tools to be extremely efficient, and we do that mainly by providing them with planning and workflow software,” said co-founder Tristan Menzinger (sitting on the right in the picture above).
Menzinger, Lars-Manuel Schneider (sitting in the middle in the picture above), and their university mate and third co-founder Udo Sill all worked at a research institute exploring renewable energy deployment. It sparked their interest in starting Reonic, but they had to listen to real customers to bridge the gap between theory and knowledge. They concluded that installers needed end-to-end software, rather than separate tools.
Startups in other sectors have reached a similar conclusion, but it can be a tough sell when the target audience already has ingrained habits. Reonic’s promise is to make it worth it by helping installers sell faster, and sell more. “Being able to combine heat pumps, for example, with solar systems, doubles the volume that you’re selling,” Schneider said.
Unlike some competitors with narrower niches, such as solar, Reonic’s focus is renewable energy as a whole, whether that’s photovoltaics, energy storage systems, wallboxes, or heat pumps. Beyond a specific type of installation, the bigger goal they see is energy self-consumption for every household or business, Schneider said. “And this is something in the core of our product that always works the same, regardless where we are.”
The promise to accelerate renewable energy adoption seems to resonate with investors; in order to expand across Europe, Reonic just raised a €13 million Series A funding round led by Northzone, with participation from existing investors Point Nine and Puzzle Ventures.
This matches the preference that VCs are showing for climate-focused startups that face market risk with their go-to-market strategy, as opposed to science risk from inventing a new technology.
Even then, market risk is still real. Aurora Solar, a U.S. company that provides software to help solar installers manage their sales, laid off 20% of its staff of about 500 people earlier this year after $523 million.
But with 21 team members so far and €16 million in funding to date, Reonic is more akin to smaller companies like Arch, Enerflo, Lun and Scoop Solar.
It’s also seeing growth typical of early-stage companies that have found some product-market fit, tripling its recurring revenue in the past six months alone, the company says. “Though we’ve had some real momentum since we started the business three years ago, in truth, we feel like we’re just getting started,” said Schneider.
While subsidies and other legal frameworks vary from country to country, Reonic’s internationalization is driven by its founders’ conviction that it can enter new markets without a lot of customization. After the DACH region, it went live in France and also did a soft launch in Italy, said Menzinger, who oversaw most of the process.
Augsburg, Bavaria is still their headquarters, but almost half their staff works in Berlin where they opened a second office earlier this year to recruit international talent more easily — another important piece for the expansion that its new round will help fund.
E-bike maker Cowboy raises a small funding round as it targets profitability next year
Cowboy, the Brussels-based company that has been designing and selling electric bikes that you can see in major cities across Europe, has closed a small, strategic funding round of €5 million (around $5.5 million at current exchange rates). That includes €1 million in debt facilities.
While the amount isn’t as impressive as some of Cowboy’s previous fundraises, the company has been looking for an investor outside of the traditional European VC firms that have already invested in the startup — an investor that could potentially open new doors. As a result, Cypress Capital is leading the round. The Hong Kong-based investment firm has strong ties with Taiwan, which is a key hub for the global bicycle industry.
“A lot of our Asian-based suppliers are Taiwanese for historical reasons. We are growing the portion of our European suppliers continuously as we have about half of our parts that come from European suppliers. But the other half comes from Asia and mostly from Taiwanese suppliers,” Cowboy co-founder and CEO Adrien Roose (pictured above right) told TechCrunch.
Existing investors Index Ventures, Hardware Club, Future Positive Capital, Isomer and Exor are also participating once again in Wednesday’s funding round. Cowboy will also launch an equity crowdfunding campaign to give an opportunity to its customers to invest in the company.
“We’ve been raising somewhere between €10 [million] and €20 million a year over the last few years,” Roose said. “And yeah, the amount has gone down. Last year we raised €8 million in equity and €5 million of debt. And now we’re just announcing a €5 million raise, which is a fairly small raise for a company of our size.”
According to him, the company needs to raise less capital because it requires less capital. Cowboy should be more or less breakeven on an EBITDA basis for the second half of this year. Next year, he says, the company will turn a profit for the first time since its inception.
“And we don’t want to raise more than what we need, especially in these market conditions,” Roose added. It doesn’t mean that Cowboy won’t raise ever again. However, it’s been a wild ride for the startup as the e-bike industry experienced a significant boost in sales after COVID-related lockdowns. The company’s valuation peaked around that time.
But then, demand slowed down quite drastically. VanMoof, another European e-bike startup backed by venture capitalists, declared bankruptcy. It had a chilling effect on the entire industry.
With this recent funding round, Cowboy is now valued at €40 million on a pre-money basis. But now, all eyes are on profitability — not the company’s valuation. “We’re starting to see a ray of sunshine after the rain,” Roose said.
And believe it or not, rain plays an important part in Cowboy’s sales. The company usually sells more bikes during the spring as people start thinking about cycling to work and other places. It’s been particularly rainy in Europe this year, so Cowboy’s sales have been a bit underwhelming.
Additional Cowboy form factors
The company originally focused on a single model and iterated on the design over the years. After Cowboy 1 came Cowboy 2, Cowboy 3 and Cowboy 4. The company is now moving away from numbers and expanding its lineup to other form factors.
Cowboy added the Cruiser, a model with an upright riding posture and a step-through version to appeal to more riders. This year, the company added the Cowboy Cross model, an all-road model that aims for comfort and long-distance trips.
Similarly, Cowboy has diversified its distribution channels. In addition to its online stores, Cowboy now sells its e-bikes in traditional bicycle stores. “Since last year, we started doing partnerships with local bike shops because the fact is that 80% of e-bikes sold in Europe are still sold through these bike shops, and so we want to embrace that,” Roose said.
Behind the scenes, Cowboy bikes share the same electronic platform and software features, such as theft alerts, crash detection, in-app challenges and AdaptivePower. This feature, which has been recently updated, automatically adjusts the power of the motor depending on the current slope or wind conditions.
“We’ve invested lots of time, efforts and capital into building that platform that works really well. And now we want to capitalize on it and essentially build a family of products,” Roose said. “So we have the Classic, the Cruiser, the Cross. And you will see more bikes from us in the future.”
Exclusive: 3D printing stalwart Formlabs confirms ‘small number’ of layoffs affecting around 40
Formlabs on Thursday confirmed that it has laid off a “small number” of employees, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The 3D printing firm says the figure amounts to less than 40 of a total headcount of just under 750 employees.
The layoffs occurred in waves over the past two years, and as recently as the last few weeks. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the staff reduction. In a statement to TechCrunch, the spokesperson noted:
We routinely review every part of the organization to make sure the roles we have best support our customers and enable us to deliver great products. At the same time, we are hiring new roles across all divisions and geographies and are heavily investing in R&D. While we continue to grow revenue and lead in the additive manufacturing market, we occasionally must make the difficult decision to part ways with a small number of colleagues who are in departments that are below our efficiency goals and/or who are not in the right roles.
The MIT spinoff has been a rare success story in the 3D printing market, as the first to bring high-precision SLA (stereolithography) printing to the desktop form factor. Prior to its arrival, that corner of the market was almost exclusively made up of FDM (fused deposition modeling) printers, which deposit melted plastic layer by layer, in a manner similar to a hot glue gun. SLA, meanwhile, uses light to form a resin into a solid, high-resolution structure.
Formlabs weathered the burst of the original desktop 3D printing bubble, which saw many companies close up shop. Others, such as MakerBot, were acquired by larger companies. Broader macro issues have caused prolonged issues for much of the competition.
More recently, Formlabs has expanded into SLS (selective laser sintering) technology with its Fuse. As the name implies, the technology uses lasers to sinter powder. According to a recent post from the company’s chief product officer, Formlabs currently “ships more than 50% of all SLS units in the world.” The company also recently acquired two-person SLS startup Micronics.
In recent years, the industry has struggled to broaden 3D printing’s market by scaling the technology for manufacturing. Formlabs has introduced its own high-volume solution (effectively a wall of printers), but the company’s bread and butter has been medical and dental applications like teeth-straightening inserts that require a level of customization not achieved by more traditional manufacturing.
Exclusive: 3D printing stalwart Formlabs confirms ‘small number’ of layoffs affecting around 40
Formlabs on Thursday confirmed that it has laid off a “small number” of employees, TechCrunch has exclusively learned. The 3D printing firm says the figure amounts to less than 40 of a total headcount of just under 750 employees.
The layoffs occurred in waves over the past two years, and as recently as the last few weeks. A spokesperson for the company confirmed the staff reduction. In a statement to TechCrunch, the spokesperson noted:
We routinely review every part of the organization to make sure the roles we have best support our customers and enable us to deliver great products. At the same time, we are hiring new roles across all divisions and geographies and are heavily investing in R&D. While we continue to grow revenue and lead in the additive manufacturing market, we occasionally must make the difficult decision to part ways with a small number of colleagues who are in departments that are below our efficiency goals and/or who are not in the right roles.
The MIT spinoff has been a rare success story in the 3D printing market, as the first to bring high-precision SLA (stereolithography) printing to the desktop form factor. Prior to its arrival, that corner of the market was almost exclusively made up of FDM (fused deposition modeling) printers, which deposit melted plastic layer by layer, in a manner similar to a hot glue gun. SLA, meanwhile, uses light to form a resin into a solid, high-resolution structure.
Formlabs weathered the burst of the original desktop 3D printing bubble, which saw many companies close up shop. Others, such as MakerBot, were acquired by larger companies. Broader macro issues have caused prolonged issues for much of the competition.
More recently, Formlabs has expanded into SLS (selective laser sintering) technology with its Fuse. As the name implies, the technology uses lasers to sinter powder. According to a recent post from the company’s chief product officer, Formlabs currently “ships more than 50% of all SLS units in the world.” The company also recently acquired two-person SLS startup Micronics.
In recent years, the industry has struggled to broaden 3D printing’s market by scaling the technology for manufacturing. Formlabs has introduced its own high-volume solution (effectively a wall of printers), but the company’s bread and butter has been medical and dental applications like teeth-straightening inserts that require a level of customization not achieved by more traditional manufacturing.