The Google manager will be the new head of technology at 1Komma5Grad.
(Photo:فKomma5Grad)
Stuttgart The founder of the Hamburg start-up 1Komma5 Grad, Philipp Schröder, can hardly hide his pride in his personal coup: he has succeeded in recruiting a high-ranking manager from the industry for his company with a climate-neutral mission. The new head of technology will be Barbara Wittenberg, who is currently head of the “Digital Natives” department at Google, as Schröder told the Handelsblatt. At the internet giant, she was responsible, among other things, for cooperation with start-ups such as Flink, Zalando and Hello Fresh.
Now Wittenberg is to set up the smart energy manager “Heartbeat” in such a way that 1Komma5 cannot quickly reach technical limits during growth. “I know from my previous jobs that start-ups often make crucial mistakes that cannot be easily rectified,” Wittenberg told the Handelsblatt. Before she started at Google, she had already gained experience at Eon – and thus knows the business of energy suppliers.
The aim of 1Komma5 Grad is to manage customers’ climate-neutral households like small virtual power plants. Schröder recently recruited David Sättermann, head of the solar subsidiary, from Eon. He is to build up the business of the start-up in Scandinavia.
So far, the company has clearly exceeded its growth forecasts for this year and next. For the year 2022, Schröder is now planning a turnover of 230 million euros. “In 2023 we want to more than double it to over 500 million euros.” At the beginning of the year, the CEO had still expected sales of 100 million euros in his first full financial year.
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Most recently, the start-up had also expanded to Finland and Denmark. Other countries are to follow quickly. “We are planning to enter the markets in Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Benelux and Poland in 2023,” emphasizes Schröder. This means his company is growing faster than competitors like Enpal, which has been on the market for more than five years and was the first green start-up in Germany to be valued by investors at more than one billion dollars.
1Komma5 Grad offers photovoltaic systems, electricity storage, charging infrastructure for electric cars and also heat pumps from the product to the installation to the green electricity contract from a single source, including intelligent networking modules from our own hardware and software.
Profit shortly after incorporation
Numerous investors – including Porsche – believe in Schröder’s business and have invested 300 million euros in the company’s growth course. Just one year after it was founded, the start-up wants to achieve a positive pre-tax result of 20 million euros. To date, the company has sold and installed almost 40,000 CO2-neutral energy systems.
Schröder is considered a marketing talent. Before founding the start-up, he managed Tesla’s German business and was Managing Director of the solar battery manufacturer Sonnen.
Its smart energy management system “Heartbeat” should save customers up to 700 euros per year through direct networking with the electricity market. “We guarantee this for up to five years,” emphasizes the entrepreneur. This saving is to be achieved by buying green electricity when it is cheapest and feeding the self-generated electricity into the grid when prices are high thanks to a buffer storage. Schröder is convinced that the system means that an energy-efficient house pays for itself much more quickly.
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Meanwhile, the growth course continues unabated, also through acquisitions. In order to build up advice and service, 1Komma5 Grad buys mostly from larger craft companies. Although they sacrifice their independence, they receive non-voting shares in the start-up and part of the service income as well as access to networking as well as software and hardware. By 2030 he wants to have taken over 80 craft businesses and to have supplied and networked 1.5 million buildings in Europe with CO2-neutral technology for electricity, heat and mobility through the platform.
The start-up now has 23 locations and 800 employees, and by the end of the year there should be 1000 employees at 30 locations. Following the example of Apple, 1Komma5 Grad set up its own shops for Heartbeat in Hamburg, Lingen and Münster. Malmö, Stockholm, Munich, Potsdam and Düsseldorf are under construction. The company’s goal is to present climate-neutral life as cool, explains Schröder.
For the complete solution, however, customers also have to invest between 30,000 and 60,000 euros. However, inflation also hits 1 point 5 degrees: The procurement has become more expensive, explains company boss Schröder. “We still have good conditions for the electricity contracts, but the costs will tend to rise here,” he concedes.
However, with rising energy prices, systems with their own energy generation pay off more quickly for customers. In any case, the financing costs are lower than the current costs for electricity and gas, emphasizes the company founder.
More: These start-ups promise greater energy efficiency for homeowners.