Munich Startup Furo Raises $4M to Slash Industrial Energy Bills

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

Furo, a Munich-based energy software company formerly known as Lumera Energy, just closed a €3.44 million ($4 million) funding round. The money will go toward developing its software further, expanding into more European markets, and growing the team. The round was led by US investor TQ Ventures, with participation from Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners (Sheryl Sandberg's fund), Neo, and CDTM Venture Capital. ### What Furo Actually Does Furo isn't another battery manufacturer. It's a software company that controls and optimizes commercial and industrial battery storage. The platform forecasts power prices and weather up to 48 hours ahead, then uses that data to decide in real time when a battery should charge, discharge, or sell power back to the grid. "Our customers did not buy a battery in order to own a technology, but in order to lower their electricity bill," said Lena Sophia Voß, co-founder of Furo. "In one of the most volatile power markets in the world, that is decided by the software, not by the hardware. That is exactly why we founded Furo." That's the core insight: a battery is only as good as the brain telling it what to do. Most installations today run on rigid, pre-programmed rules that ignore real-time weather and price signals. Furo's software changes that. ### Why This Matters for Industrial Companies Global energy demand from AI data centers is rising sharply, and that hits energy-intensive industrial companies hardest—especially in Germany, where electricity prices are among the highest in the world. Battery storage can help by storing surplus solar or wind power and releasing it when needed. But without smart software, those batteries often sit idle or operate inefficiently. Furo claims its platform can reduce electricity costs by up to 40%. It's not sold directly to end customers but through installers, project developers, storage manufacturers, and utilities. More than 800 companies across over 6,000 sites in Germany and Europe already use it. The platform adapts to different roles, from system sizing to asset operation to marketing free capacity in energy trading. ### The Bigger Picture Inflexible energy demand costs industrial companies an estimated $580 billion a year worldwide. The problem isn't renewable energy itself—it's price volatility, high grid fees, load peaks, and a lack of flexibility in consumption. Furo's forecasting module prices in those fluctuations, while static systems remain blind to them. "Lena, Leonie and Simon understand the European energy market at an extraordinary level of depth," said Schuster Tanger, co-founding partner at TQ Ventures. "It's a remarkable example of team-market fit. Together, they bring exceptional technical depth and operational experience in Europe's most complex power market. That's already reflected in the number of projects and the data they've built up. Coupled with a global market for storage flexibility set to multiply in the coming years, we see this as one of the greatest opportunities in Europe and beyond." The founders—Voß, Leonie Wagner, and Simon Wittner—met in 2025 on a joint master's program at the Centre for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) of LMU Munich and the Technical University of Munich. They launched the company as Lumera Energy and rebranded to Furo in May 2026. Earlier this month, Furo announced a partnership with Berlin-based LUOX Energy, the end-customer brand of Lumenaza GmbH, to launch a combined solution for optimizing commercial and industrial battery storage systems. For American startups watching European energy tech, Furo's playbook is worth noting: pick a complex, regulated market, build software that turns volatility into savings, and sell through established channels rather than going direct. It's a quiet but powerful approach—and now it has $4 million behind it.