David Balensiefen (left) and Andreas Booke (right) hand over the management to Tim Steinmetz (centre right) and Tobias Mitter (centre left) on April 1, 2023.
Dusseldorf The Essen energy group Eon takes over the Munich start-up GridX completely, as the company announced to the Handelsblatt. Eon buys the shares in the start-up from GridX founders David Balensiefen and Andreas Booke. The group has been working with GridX since 2017 and has held a majority stake in the young company since September 2021.
In the course of the takeover, Balensiefen and Booke are leaving the company management. Tim Steinmetz and Tobias Mitter become the new managing directors. Steinmetz has been Chief Growth Officer at GridX since mid-2019 and will start as the new Managing Director on January 1, 2023. Tobias Mitter has worked in various positions at the consulting firms BCG and IBM and is now active in management consulting at Eon. He will take up his new role at GridX on February 1, 2023.
GridX develops digital solutions for intelligent control in the power grid. This is becoming more and more important as the challenges for the power grid are increasing. Unlike in the past, the electricity no longer comes from just a few large power plants, but also from a large number of photovoltaic systems and wind turbines. At the same time, there are numerous new electricity consumers such as electric cars or heat pumps.
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GridX wants to deliver the digital infrastructure for the energy transition and helps companies, for example, to install more charging stations at a location without having to expand the power grid. In concrete terms, this can mean coordinating the charging process of several electric cars in a parking garage. If the network threatens to be overloaded, the charging power is dimmed down by software. In case of doubt, this is not a problem, since the cars are often in the parking lot longer than is necessary for the fastest possible charging.
Anticipate when network congestion could be imminent
The young company also makes it possible to better control energy production and consumption in the home. All this is made possible by the Xenon platform, which processes real-time data with artificial intelligence.
Digitization is a key issue for Eon. The more the power grid is used, the more the company has to take countermeasures and anticipate which streets are at risk of being overloaded. Eon’s nine regional companies operate more than 800,000 kilometers of electricity and gas networks in Germany.
An Eon spokesman commented on the takeover of GridX: “The energy crisis has now shown that the company’s potential is even greater.” Last year, GridX laid the foundations for growth and proved that the acquisition worked.
Balensiefen and Booke will work together with the new managing directors until April 1st and want to continue advising GridX afterwards. Balensiefen sees GridX ahead of a “strong scaling phase with large employee growth and ambitious goals”. This growth phase presents “demands that Andy and I see in more experienced managers”. The founders now want to take a break and probably travel a bit, said Balensiefen.
According to Eon, GridX will continue to operate as an independent company and be responsible for its growth strategy. However, Eon wants to get involved in the further financing of the start-up and thus promote its growth in Europe. The company is expected to more than double its sales in the future.
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