Munich Startup Furo Raises $4M to Cut Your Power Bill

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

### Furo's $4 Million Bet on Smarter Batteries Munich-based energy software company Furo (formerly Lumera Energy) just raised €3.44 million ($4 million) to make industrial battery storage cheaper and smarter. The round was led by US investor TQ Ventures, with Sheryl Sandberg's fund Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, Neo, and CDTM Venture Capital joining in. Furo isn't selling batteries. It's selling the brain that tells them what to do. And in a world where electricity prices swing wildly, that brain matters more than the hardware. ### Why Software Beats Hardware in Energy Storage Most battery systems today run on rigid, pre-programmed rules. They charge and discharge on a fixed schedule, ignoring weather forecasts and price spikes. That's like setting your thermostat once and never touching it again. Furo's platform forecasts power prices and weather up to 48 hours ahead. Then it decides in real time when a battery should charge, when it should release power, and when it should sell unused capacity back to the grid. Customers reportedly cut their electricity costs by up to 40%. "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." ### From Munich Classroom to 6,000 Sites Voß founded Furo in 2025 with Leonie Wagner and Simon Wittner. The three met during a joint master's program at the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) in Munich. They rebranded from Lumera Energy in May 2026. Today, more than 800 companies use Furo across over 6,000 sites in Germany and Europe. The platform adapts to different roles: installers, project developers, storage manufacturers, and utilities. It handles everything from system sizing to asset operation to energy trading. ### The Real Problem: Volatile Power Markets Germany's electricity prices are among the highest in the world. And global energy demand from AI data centers keeps rising, hitting energy-intensive industries hardest. Inflexible energy demand costs industrial companies an estimated $580 billion a year worldwide. The issue isn't renewable energy itself. It's price volatility, high grid fees, load peaks, and a lack of consumption flexibility. Static battery systems stay blind to these fluctuations. Furo's forecasting module prices them in. > "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. We see this as one of the greatest opportunities in Europe and beyond." ### What's Next for Furo Furo recently partnered with Berlin-based LUOX Energy to launch a combined solution for optimizing commercial and industrial battery storage. The company plans to use the new funding to further develop its software, expand into more European markets, and grow its team. With battery storage set to multiply globally in the coming years, Furo's software-first approach could become the standard for industrial energy management. And that's good news for anyone tired of watching their power bill climb.