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Cloover has reached profitability and added USD $100 million in financing capacity. The Berlin-based clean energy company said revenue has passed a USD $350 million run rate.
The new facility brings total financing capacity to more than USD $1.3 billion, backed by a EUR €300 million guarantee from the European Investment Fund. The funding is used to pay for energy equipment and installations across Cloover's markets.
Cloover is also expanding its European footprint with new offices in the UK, France and Poland. It now serves customers in five European markets and handles about 20,000 installations a year through independent regional installers.
Founded in 2023 by Jodok Betschart, Peder Broms and Valentin Gönczy, Cloover focuses on the residential market for solar panels, heat pumps and home electrification. Its model relies on independent installers rather than a direct sales force, with financing embedded at the point of sale.
Customers can receive a financing decision in under two minutes, avoid upfront payment and spread costs over as long as 25 years. Every project financed so far has been sold by an independent installer, according to the company.
Installer model
Independent installers account for about 85% of the market, according to Cloover. The company provides them with software, financing and energy products while allowing them to keep their own branding, customer relationships and hardware choices.
That approach has helped make Cloover one of the top three residential energy players in Germany, according to the company. Germany is Europe's largest energy market.
"We reach households through the installers they already trust, and then we turn each of those homes into a power plant, and each homeowner into a participant in the energy market. That is a relationship that lasts for decades, not a single transaction," said Jodok Betschart, Co-founder of Cloover.
Energy shift
The company is now moving beyond finance and software into retail energy and energy management. It is pooling the systems installed through its platform into a virtual power plant made up of residential solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers.
Through Cloover Energy, households are offered a home energy management system along with dynamic and fixed tariffs. Its software forecasts household generation and consumption, then schedules storage and flexible loads within settings chosen by the customer, the company said.
This allows batteries to charge when electricity is cheaper and heat pumps to run when costs are lower, according to Cloover. Aggregated across thousands of homes, that flexibility can be used to feed power back to the grid, reduce grid fees and trade in intraday electricity markets.
Installers can offer the virtual power plant to households under their own name, while Cloover manages the underlying systems and market processes. The company describes this structure as a "neo-utility" because it does not own generation assets and instead uses the installed base of customer systems as its source of supply and flexibility.
"Everything we do runs on AI, from the underwriting to the way we optimise energy in each home. The incumbents are adding AI to systems built decades ago. We can do in seconds what takes them days, and the gap widens as we scale," said Gönczy.
Market backdrop
Cloover's expansion comes as Europe's residential energy market adjusts to changing regulation and rising electricity demand. Electrification of transport, heating and industry, along with growth in data centres, is expected to increase strain on grids while price volatility remains a concern for households and suppliers.
Cloover argues that these shifts make distributed household assets more valuable. In its view, homes that can generate, store and shift energy use are becoming part of the wider energy system rather than remaining passive consumers.
The company also pointed to the gradual withdrawal or redesign of feed-in tariffs and net metering schemes across Europe. Those policies have long supported residential solar economics, but several markets are moving towards models that place greater value on flexible consumption and real-time trading.
Under that framework, households could earn income from the flexibility of their systems rather than relying mainly on fixed export payments, Cloover said. That would make batteries, heat pumps and solar systems more financially attractive even without the same level of subsidy support.
Profitability remains relatively unusual among fast-growing energy technology businesses, many of which continue to prioritise expansion over margins. Cloover's latest figures suggest it has combined growth with positive earnings only three years after launch.
"The hardware for the energy transition already works. What has been missing is a company that makes it affordable, reaches people through the installer they know, and turns their homes into a real energy business. That is the neo-utility we are building," said Broms.