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

Jan de Vries · 2026-09-11

What if the key to slashing your factory's electricity bill wasn't a bigger battery, but smarter software? That's exactly the bet a Munich-based startup is making, and investors just handed them $4 million to prove it. Furo, formerly known as Lumera Energy, announced today it closed a €3.44 million ($4 million) funding round. The company plans to use the cash to beef up its software, push into more European markets, and grow its team. The round was led by US investor TQ Ventures, with participation from Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners (yes, that's Sheryl Sandberg's fund), along with Neo and CDTM Venture Capital. ### The Problem With Most Battery Storage Here's the thing: most commercial battery systems operate on rigid, pre-programmed rules. They charge and discharge based on a fixed schedule, completely blind to what's actually happening with weather or electricity prices. That's like setting your thermostat to 70°F year-round and never touching it again. Furo's software takes a different approach. It forecasts power prices and weather up to 48 hours ahead, then optimizes battery operation in real time. When prices spike, the system sells. When they dip, it charges. The result? 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. In one of the most volatile power markets in the world, that is decided by the software, not by the hardware." – Lena Sophia Voß, co-founder of Furo ### From Classroom to $4M Raise Furo was founded in 2025 by Voß, Leonie Wagner, and Simon Wittner. The three met during a joint master's program at the Centre for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), a collaboration between LMU Munich and the Technical University of Munich. Their timing seems spot-on. Global energy demand from AI data centers is skyrocketing, and energy-intensive industrial companies are feeling the squeeze—especially in Germany, where electricity prices rank among the highest in the world. ### How It Works Furo doesn't sell directly to end customers. Instead, it partners with installers, project developers, storage manufacturers, and utilities. The platform adapts to each partner's role, from system sizing to asset operation to marketing unused capacity in energy trading. More than 800 companies already use Furo across over 6,000 sites in Germany and Europe. The company also recently announced a partnership with Berlin-based LUOX Energy to launch a combined solution for optimizing commercial and industrial battery storage systems. ### The Bigger Picture Inflexible energy demand costs industrial companies an estimated $580 billion a year worldwide. The culprit isn't renewable energy itself—it's price volatility, high grid fees, load peaks, and a lack of consumption flexibility. Furo's forecasting module prices in exactly these fluctuations, while static systems remain blind to them. As Schuster Tanger, co-founding partner at TQ Ventures, put it: "Lena, Leonie and Simon understand the European energy market at an extraordinary level of depth. It's a remarkable example of team-market fit." With the global market for storage flexibility set to multiply in the coming years, Furo's $4 million bet on software over hardware might just be the smartest play in the energy game.