HTGF | High-Tech Gruenderfonds

High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH is a venture capital firm based in Bonn, Germany, specializing in early-stage investments in high-tech startups. Established in 2005, the firm focuses on technology-driven companies across various sectors, including information and communication technology, life sciences, healthcare, automation, and cleantech. HTGF typically invests in companies that have been operational for no more than one year, aiming to contribute up to €0.6 million in initial funding and up to €3 million in follow-on financing. The firm seeks a minority stake, generally around 15%, and provides a subordinated loan convertible into equity, with deferred interest for up to four years to support liquidity. With a total investment volume of approximately €895.5 million across three funds, HTGF has successfully supported over 500 startups and attracted more than €2 billion in follow-on investments from external sources. The firm's investors include notable public and private entities, underscoring its role as a key player in fostering innovation and growth within the German startup ecosystem.

Jens Baumgärtner

Senior Investment Manager

Nicolas Kirschner

Investment Manager

Lena Krzyzak

Principal

Katharina Peters

Investment Manager

Claudia Raber

Partner

Tobias Schulz

Principal

Past deals in Energy

node.energy

Series B in 2025
node.energy develops software-as-a-service solutions for managing decentralized energy systems in commercial and industrial real estate. Its platform optimizes local energy microgrids, reducing administrative workload, energy costs, and carbon footprint while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Autarkize

Seed Round in 2024
Autarkize is a developer of a patented pyrolysis system technology that focuses on achieving energy and fertilizer self-sufficiency through the carbonization of residual biomasses. The company offers a market-ready system that extracts high-quality gas composed of methane and hydrogen from various biomass residues in a decentralized manner. Its technology is capable of processing all types and amounts of biomass, resulting in significantly higher energy density compared to traditional carbonization systems. Additionally, the process generates biochar, which enhances soil quality and contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. By enabling industrial companies to promote energy cleaning and decarbonization, Autarkize plays a vital role in advancing sustainable energy solutions.

Caeli Wind

Series A in 2024
Caeli Wind is a digital marketplace focused on enhancing the wind energy sector by identifying optimal locations for wind turbine projects. The company employs advanced AI-supported analysis to assess various factors, such as regional planning, grid connections, and economic efficiency, ensuring comprehensive evaluations of wind potential. By creating a cloud-based platform, Caeli Wind connects landowners with project developers, facilitating streamlined marketing efforts and accelerating the implementation of wind energy projects. Its mission is to promote the widespread adoption of wind turbines and improve the overall success rate of projects within the wind industry.

Everyone Energy

Seed Round in 2024
Everyone Energy is a technology company that specializes in an automated energy advisory platform. This platform aims to enhance user experience during the energy transition by providing expert advice on various energy solutions, including PV systems, heat pumps, electric vehicle charging points, and battery storage. It caters to both residential and commercial clients, helping them connect with relevant solution providers, facilitating informed decision-making, and saving time in the process.

Proxima Fusion

Seed Round in 2024
Proxima Fusion develops innovative fusion power plants using optimized stellarators. These magnetic confinement devices aim to generate emissions-free power through nuclear fusion, providing a clean and safe energy source.

BTRY

Pre Seed Round in 2024
BTRY, spun off from EMPA and ETH, specializes in developing the first energy-dense solid-state battery, leveraging advanced semiconductor manufacturing techniques. The company aims to provide a sustainable energy storage solution, offering customizable battery properties to meet diverse customer needs, thereby reducing energy consumption and waste from solvent evaporation and recycling.

Caeli Wind

Seed Round in 2023
Caeli Wind is a digital marketplace focused on enhancing the wind energy sector by identifying optimal locations for wind turbine projects. The company employs advanced AI-supported analysis to assess various factors, such as regional planning, grid connections, and economic efficiency, ensuring comprehensive evaluations of wind potential. By creating a cloud-based platform, Caeli Wind connects landowners with project developers, facilitating streamlined marketing efforts and accelerating the implementation of wind energy projects. Its mission is to promote the widespread adoption of wind turbines and improve the overall success rate of projects within the wind industry.

Proxima Fusion

Pre Seed Round in 2023
Proxima Fusion develops innovative fusion power plants using optimized stellarators. These magnetic confinement devices aim to generate emissions-free power through nuclear fusion, providing a clean and safe energy source.

Sunvigo

Series B in 2023
Sunvigo is a company that specializes in making solar power accessible to residential homeowners. It simplifies the use of rooftop solar energy by offering electricity contracts that enable customers to buy or rent solar systems. By leveraging a robust network of partners, including smart meter operators and photovoltaic installers, Sunvigo provides affordable solar power solutions. The company aims to democratize access to clean energy, ensuring that homeowners can benefit from local and emission-free energy sources.

Phytonics

Seed Round in 2023
Phytonics specializes in designing and providing anti-reflective coating products for photovoltaic modules. These coatings offer superior light-trapping capabilities, enhancing solar energy absorption and facilitating the transition to renewable energy sources.

Refuel Green

Pre Seed Round in 2023
Refuel Green provides services in the fields of technical and economic analyses and evaluations of individual PtX technologies up to complete PtX systems and projects. They offer consulting services in the field of renewable and CO2-neutral fuels.

Agriportance

Seed Round in 2022
Agriportance is a software-as-a-service company operating in Europe's renewable energy sector. Founded in 2020, it specializes in software for sustainability certification under REDcert-EU and ISCC-EU, allowing users to generate mass and greenhouse gas balances online. The platform connects biomethane producers with mineral oil companies and monitors sustainability certification and the buying and selling of biomethane using greenhouse gas accounting, enabling a carbon footprint aligned with the Renewable Energy Directive. The company plans to expand into trading renewable energy quotas and to strengthen its European market presence, following seed funding in December 2022 to enhance its digital capabilities.

node.energy

Series A in 2022
node.energy develops software-as-a-service solutions for managing decentralized energy systems in commercial and industrial real estate. Its platform optimizes local energy microgrids, reducing administrative workload, energy costs, and carbon footprint while ensuring regulatory compliance.

IO-Dynamics

Seed Round in 2022
IO-Dynamics specializes in smart charging solutions for electric vehicle fleets, focusing on energy management and optimization. The company develops software that gathers and analyzes real-time data from electric vehicles and charging infrastructure. This technology enables organizations to efficiently manage and control the charging processes of their e-fleets, ensuring sustainable and reliable operations. By providing insights into energy consumption and charging patterns, IO-Dynamics helps businesses plan their charging schedules automatically and reduce costs associated with electric vehicle operations.

Sunvigo

Venture Round in 2022
Sunvigo is a company that specializes in making solar power accessible to residential homeowners. It simplifies the use of rooftop solar energy by offering electricity contracts that enable customers to buy or rent solar systems. By leveraging a robust network of partners, including smart meter operators and photovoltaic installers, Sunvigo provides affordable solar power solutions. The company aims to democratize access to clean energy, ensuring that homeowners can benefit from local and emission-free energy sources.

Sunvigo

Venture Round in 2021
Sunvigo is a company that specializes in making solar power accessible to residential homeowners. It simplifies the use of rooftop solar energy by offering electricity contracts that enable customers to buy or rent solar systems. By leveraging a robust network of partners, including smart meter operators and photovoltaic installers, Sunvigo provides affordable solar power solutions. The company aims to democratize access to clean energy, ensuring that homeowners can benefit from local and emission-free energy sources.

Sunvigo

Seed Round in 2020
Sunvigo is a company that specializes in making solar power accessible to residential homeowners. It simplifies the use of rooftop solar energy by offering electricity contracts that enable customers to buy or rent solar systems. By leveraging a robust network of partners, including smart meter operators and photovoltaic installers, Sunvigo provides affordable solar power solutions. The company aims to democratize access to clean energy, ensuring that homeowners can benefit from local and emission-free energy sources.

envelio

Series A in 2019
envelio GmbH, founded in 2017 and based in Cologne, Germany, specializes in developing software solutions for the planning and operation of energy networks. The company offers the Intelligent Grid Platform (IGP), a modular software system designed to assist distribution grid operators in digitizing and automating their processes. This platform integrates algorithms based on artificial intelligence and mathematical optimization to facilitate the management of distribution grids, allowing for the seamless incorporation of numerous distributed energy resources and smart meter data. Key features of the IGP include applications for data quality management, automated grid planning, and operational support for congestion management in response to potential grid bottlenecks. By enabling grid operators to optimize their operations, envelio plays a crucial role in advancing the energy transition and enhancing grid sustainability and flexibility.

envelio

Seed Round in 2018
envelio GmbH, founded in 2017 and based in Cologne, Germany, specializes in developing software solutions for the planning and operation of energy networks. The company offers the Intelligent Grid Platform (IGP), a modular software system designed to assist distribution grid operators in digitizing and automating their processes. This platform integrates algorithms based on artificial intelligence and mathematical optimization to facilitate the management of distribution grids, allowing for the seamless incorporation of numerous distributed energy resources and smart meter data. Key features of the IGP include applications for data quality management, automated grid planning, and operational support for congestion management in response to potential grid bottlenecks. By enabling grid operators to optimize their operations, envelio plays a crucial role in advancing the energy transition and enhancing grid sustainability and flexibility.

otego

Seed Round in 2018
otego GmbH is a German company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Karlsruhe. It specializes in the development of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) that provide independent energy solutions for wireless sensors and actuators. By converting heat directly into electric power through temperature differences, otego's technology is applicable in various fields, including the Internet of Things, waste heat recovery, and Industry 4.0. The company emerged as a spin-off from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and is driven by a diverse team comprising physicians, a chemist, and a business engineer, all dedicated to advancing and commercializing its innovative technology.

node.energy

Venture Round in 2017
node.energy develops software-as-a-service solutions for managing decentralized energy systems in commercial and industrial real estate. Its platform optimizes local energy microgrids, reducing administrative workload, energy costs, and carbon footprint while ensuring regulatory compliance.

Solandeo

Seed Round in 2015
Solandeo GmbH, founded in 2011 and based in Berlin, Germany, specializes in manufacturing and marketing metering and power management solutions. The company focuses on providing energy management solutions tailored for renewable energy plants, aiding in the detection of actual power output for the green electricity market. Solandeo offers services such as real-time measurement data provision, data logging, and monitoring of measured installations to support grid connection and feed-in meters. Additionally, it provides cost-effective and innovative solutions for smart metering, remote control technology, and technical upgrades for wind turbines, solar panels, and biogas heating plants.

OneShore

Seed Round in 2015
OneShore Energy, established in 2013, specializes in designing, engineering, and operating off-grid solar-diesel-hybrid systems for power generation. Based in Berlin, Germany, the company caters to diverse sectors such as hospitals, hotels, off-grid communities, and industrial facilities in Germany, Greece, Tanzania, and Kenya. OneShore's offerings include software tools like OneAnalyser for demand analysis, OneOptimiser for remote monitoring, and OneDesign for system modeling. The company aims to optimize energy use, reduce fuel consumption, and provide certified fuel-saving reports to its clients.

Kiwigrid

Venture Round in 2013
Kiwigrid develops and operates a smart grid energy management platform in Europe. Its solutions enable efficient monitoring, analysis, and optimization of energy systems, supporting various industries including OEM, utilities, automotive, real estate, and installers.

Smart Hydro Power

Series A in 2012
Smart Hydro Power GmbH is a company based in Feldafing, Germany, that specializes in the development and manufacture of kinetic micro-hydro power plants. Founded in 2010, it evolved from a group of turbine developers into a provider of comprehensive renewable energy solutions, focusing on decentralized electrification projects. The company offers a range of products, including smart turbines, smart packages, and an intelligent energy management system, designed to meet the needs of remote and off-grid locations. Smart Hydro Power's systems are eco-friendly, fish-friendly, and require minimal infrastructure, making them a viable alternative for rural electrification. By combining simplicity, competitiveness, and completeness in its offerings, the company aims to enhance productivity and improve living standards in underserved communities.

enercast

Series A in 2012
Founded in 2011, enercast specializes in renewable energy forecasting. It offers software-as-a-service products that provide accurate power predictions for wind and solar plants, facilitating their integration into global power grids and markets. The company's AI-driven platform delivers over 100 million forecast data points annually to customers across 20 countries, covering approximately 160 GW of installed capacity.

Entelios

Series A in 2011
Entelios is a clean energy supplier founded in 2010, specializing in demand response and virtual power plant solutions. Acquired by EnerNOC in 2014, the company focuses on the management of distributed energy resources across industrial, commercial, and institutional sectors. Entelios enables its clients to enhance their sustainability practices by providing products that facilitate the integration of renewable energy and help manage system imbalances. This approach allows both large and small businesses to adopt greener operations, contributing to a more sustainable energy future.

enymotion

Venture Round in 2008
Enymotion specializes in the development and production of ultra-quiet, zero-emission energy sources tailored for mobile applications. The company focuses on creating innovative mobile fuel cell systems that provide a self-sufficient power supply for recreational use, such as in caravans, boats, and utility vehicles. These systems utilize the caloric equivalent of conventional fuels or liquid gas, delivering power without noise or exhaust emissions. By enabling consumers to consume power independently, Enymotion positions itself as a leader in sustainable energy solutions for outdoor and recreational lifestyles.
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