Munich-based Furo has closed a $4 million seed round led by TQ Ventures to scale software that helps industrial customers use battery storage more profitably. Neo, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners and Munich's Center for Digital Technology and Management joined the round.
The pitch: batteries as a market instrument
Furo's platform decides when to charge, discharge or reserve battery capacity against changing power prices and operating needs, sitting between the physical asset and wholesale European electricity markets. Deutsche Bahn is among its named customers, using the software to work its industrial storage fleet against day-ahead and intraday spot prices.
Own the optimizer, not the asset
Furo does not manufacture or own the battery. Its wedge is the optimization layer, which can capture recurring value from every megawatt-hour of storage that comes online without balance-sheet exposure to hardware. That software-only positioning is increasingly common in European storage: as the market races toward gigawatt-scale grid batteries and co-located solar-plus-BESS sites, the arbitrage and ancillary-services layer is where margins accrue.
A trans-Atlantic company
Furo is incorporated as a Delaware C corporation but headquartered in Munich, with founders who moved back to Germany from Silicon Valley to be near industrial customers, technical universities and energy-market expertise. TQ Ventures' involvement gives Furo a bridge to US industrial customers — an increasingly common template for European climate-software startups.
What's next
The company plans to expand its optimization models to additional European power markets, hire quantitative and full-stack engineers and integrate with more third-party BESS hardware providers before targeting a Series A in 2027.
Reporting based on coverage from Dealroom and Tech Startups.