Hamburg's youngest unicorn 1Komma5° is definitely the largest, but certainly not the only greentech from the Hanseatic city. The startup Suena, founded in 2021 (like 1Komma5°), has developed software for automated and optimized energy trading – with the aim of making energy storage operations more sustainable and profitable. With his idea for a trading-as-a-service platform, Suena has raised seed financing of three million euros. The capital injection is intended to bring the company closer to its vision of being a “catalyst for the energy transition” across Europe.
The financing round was led by Santander Inno Energy climate fund and Energie 360's Smart Energy innovation fund. Existing investors EIT Inno Energy, one of the leading cleantech VCs in Europe, and Raakwark Kaptaal from Hamburg also participated in the round. Lead investor Santander highlighted the role of technology in the profitable operation of battery storage and unlocking previously unused grid flexibility. Overall, investors emphasized the startup's potential to accelerate the energy transition by enabling economically optimized energy storage.
Optimization of energy trading
With Suena, the central battery storage for the regular use of renewable energies can be optimally utilized based on AI-driven forecast models. This promises both ecological and economic benefits: The trading-as-a-service platform processes large amounts of data and optimizes energy trading in real time and fully automatically. The founders therefore speak of the Suena autopilot. On the one hand, this should minimize the risk of an energy shortage and, on the other hand, maximize financial returns – and thus make the battery storage system a “profitable business case”, as it is called in the pitch deck. The company is aimed at owners of energy storage and renewable energy systems.
“Large-scale energy storage capacities and their efficient use are a crucial part of the energy transition,” says CEO Lennard Wilkening, who founded the company in Hamburg at the end of 2021 together with Miguel Wesselmann and Tom Witter. Suena's modular software design should also enable rapid adaptation to new market designs and regulations. The company wants to invest the three million in expanding its team, developing its services and launching in Europe.
Check out the Suena pitch deck here, with which the startup managed to convince investors. You can find more pitch decks here.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.de/gruenderszene/business/hamburger-greentech-suena-bekommt-millionen-mit-diesem-pitchdeck/