Analysis
Hamburg-based clean-energy startup 1KOMMA5° has raised more than €70 million (about $78 million) in new funding at a $1.35 billion pre-money valuation, according to ESG Today. The round, led by b2venture, values the five-year-old company 35% higher than its July 2025 round, making it one of Europe's newest cleantech unicorns. Existing investors CalSTRS, eCapital, G2 Venture Partners, and Eurazeo returned, joined by new backer Marunouchi Innovation Partners, a Japanese cleantech growth fund.
What 1KOMMA5° Actually Sells
Founded in 2021, 1KOMMA5° bundles solar panels, batteries, heat pumps, air conditioning, and EV chargers into a single installed package for homeowners, then layers its Heartbeat AI software on top to control those devices and sell surplus electricity back onto power exchanges. The company says Heartbeat AI already optimizes more than 100,000 home energy systems — what it calls one of Europe's largest virtual power plants — and plans to invest more than €100 million in the platform in 2027.
The category has no shortage of competitors: Germany's own Enpal and cross-town rival Zolar both sell similar bundled solar-plus-storage packages to homeowners, while US names like Sunrun have pursued the same model at scale and struggled at times with the financing side of it. 1KOMMA5° says its hardware business is already profitable and cash-flow positive and that it carries no debt — a contrast with the balance-sheet strain that has dogged some US residential solar players.
The company has not disclosed revenue, so the $1.35 billion mark rests on a multiple nobody outside the deal can verify, and the profitability claim is 1KOMMA5°'s own characterization rather than audited figures. A pre-money valuation up 35% in roughly 15 months is a strong private mark in a sector where public solar-adjacent stocks have been volatile, but it remains a price set by participating investors, not a market price.
Heartbeat AI's software and grid-services margins, not the hardware installs, will determine whether this unicorn mark holds — and Marunouchi Innovation Partners' entry hints at more Japanese cleantech capital following European residential-energy deals into 2027.
