Data is key and enables new business models. The more data you have the better. This is also true in the solar industry and that’s why solar data manager Solytic is a hot startup these days. We’re happy to break the news that Solytic celebrates the first closing of its Series A raising almost €5M from new investor EWE and existing investor Vattenfall, 2 of the top 5 utilities in Germany. As a result, Vattenfall owns a bit more than 20% and EWE a bit less than 20%. The A round was also joined by 3 business angels led by ex-Goldman Sachs banker Frank Oliver Lehmann. EWE’s impressive investment manager Justin Müller met Solytic’s Enrico Ohnemüller and Vattenfall’s Alexander Hain on 16 May 2019 at Ecosummit Berlin and learned that Solytic was planning a new round. As EWE is transforming into a smart green utility that believes in the power of data and wants to grow its renewable energy business, the Berlin-based startup immediately looked like a good strategic fit and smart investment. In fact, Solytic is open to talk to new investors providing strategic value because the next financing round is already planned.

Solytic’s co-founders (from left to right): CTO Steffen Mangold, Co-CEO Johannes Burgard, CSO Johannes Dahl, Co-CEO Konrad Perényi

Solytic was founded in September 2017 by Johannes Burgard and Konrad Perényi with a little bit of help from the company builder FoundersLane. In March 2018, Solytic raised €3M seed investment from Vattenfall and pitched as Vattenfall’s portfolio company 2 months later at Ecosummit Berlin 2018. After working together on a joint product for half a year, Solytic acquired Powerdoo in November 2019 adding CTO Steffen Mangold and CSO Johannes Dahl to the founder team as well as many customers and PV systems to the platform. Merging 2 similar startups to build a stronger one makes a lot of sense and was a very smart move. New board member Justin confirms that he likes working on a level playing field with the 4 outstanding Solytic co-founders who complement and trust each other perfectly. In our view, startup consolidation should be practiced more often not only on a national but also on a European level because it easily happens that several energy and mobility startups in multiple countries work on the same ideas without reaching the necessary traction to attract top VCs and outpace the competition.

From the beginning, the idea was to build a data-driven and hardware independent software startup for the PV industry applying machine learning and AI to enable performance optimisation and better ROIs of PV assets. As of today, Solytic has got 25 employees and manages over 100.000 residential and commercial PV systems with a total of more than 2 GW in 42 countries the majority of which are in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The goal is to reach 1 million PV systems under management within 3 years. Solytic also offers a marketplace connecting third party service providers with PV asset owners that want to buy new inverters or modules, inspection, cleaning, insurance, maintenance, batteries, direct marketing or other useful services for making more money during the lifetime of their PV plants.

Konrad will pitch Solytic again at Ecosummit Berlin 6-7 May 2020 to provide more details on their progress with fundraising, platform and customer development. We think that Solytic is well positioned to become a big startup with big impact in the solar industry.

Tags: Alexander Hain, Energy, Energy data analytics, EWE, Frank Oliver Lehmann, Justin Müller, Marketplace, PV, PV System Monitoring, Smart Green Energy, Smart Green Startup, Solar, Solar Data Manager, Solytic, Vattenfall