Berlin-based clean energy startup Ostrom raises €4.4m to make transition to green energy convenient and affordable

Berlin-based clean energy startup Ostrom has raised a total of €4.4 million in pre-seed and seed funding to further its goal of making the switch to green energy as easy and affordable as possible. Founded by Matthias Martensen and Karl Villanueva, Ostrom aims to scale its energy product portfolio and super app within Germany, Europe and beyond.

Germany's existing energy suppliers have been stuck in the past. Many still use physical mail for customer communications, rely on manual work for internal processes, offer misleading tariff tiers with long minimum contract periods, and hard-to-reach customer support. These result in a high cost-to-serve and a horrible customer experience. Ostrom believes that the transition to green energy should not come at the cost of convenience and affordability.

‍Alexander Kudlich, General Partner, 468 Capital: "We clearly see that the energy market is ripe for disruption. We have made selected investments in the area to drive the energy transition - building a fully digitized electricity provider is one of them. We invested in Ostrom from Day 1 because of the large addressable market of the business model, the obvious customer benefits and the quality of the founders."

Since launching in May 2021, Ostrom has already exceeded a 7-digit ARR run rate after just six months, growing on average 100%+ month-over-month with negligible churn. Ostrom is available all over Germany, with customers in over 400 cities & towns and growing – which already places Ostrom in the top 25% of energy providers in the country. The company has also already switched clients from over 150 energy suppliers.

Matthias Martensen, Co-founder and CEO, Ostrom: “Closing our seed round in the middle of an energy crisis – where unscrupulous discounters and sluggish traditional suppliers are going bankrupt left and right – really shows the contrarian thinking and trust our investors have in the future of energy and Ostrom as a major player going forward. We have built Ostrom to be very lean and automation-first from the start to give us the lowest cost-to-serve in the market.”

Karl Villanueva, Co-founder and CMO/CPO, Ostrom: “The energy incumbents never had to work for their customers. Meanwhile, our tech and marketing stack at Ostrom would make any B2C startup jealous. Moreover, instead of the prevailing discount-led or green-shaming negative messaging, we want to make energy approachable, intuitive and even exciting. For example, we just released our new app with carbon tracking and improved referrals - already our second release in just 7 months.”

www.ostrom.de