Cloover hits profit & launches AI-native neo-utility

Cloover has reached profitability at a revenue run rate of more than USD $350 million and is launching what it describes as an AI-native neo-utility.

The Berlin-based company has added USD $100 million in financing capacity, taking the total to more than USD $1.3 billion, backed by a USD $350 million guarantee from the European Investment Fund. The funding pays for residential energy equipment and installations across its markets, which are due to expand with new offices in the UK, France and Poland.

Founded in 2023 by Jodok Betschart, Peder Broms and Valentin Gönczy, Cloover operates in residential solar, heat pumps and home electrification. It works through independent regional installers rather than building its own direct sales force.

Around 20,000 installations a year now run through those installer partnerships. Cloover serves clients in five European markets and says it has become one of the top three residential energy players in Germany, Europe's largest energy market.

Installer model

The model centres on providing financing and software to independent installers, which Cloover says account for about 85% of the market. Installers keep their own branding, customer relationships and hardware choices, while offering products including solar systems, heat pumps and energy-efficient renovations with finance included at the point of sale.

According to Cloover, end customers receive a financing decision in under two minutes, pay nothing upfront and can spread costs over as long as 25 years. Every project it has financed so far has been sold by an independent installer.

Jodok Betschart outlined the strategy in a statement: "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," said Betschart, Co-Founder at Cloover. "That is a relationship that lasts for decades, not a single transaction."

Energy expansion

Beyond finance and software, the company is moving further into energy services. Once a system is installed, it can manage household energy use through a home energy management system, offer fixed and dynamic tariffs, and combine distributed assets such as solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and electric vehicle chargers into a virtual power plant.

In practice, that means using software models to forecast generation and consumption at household level, then scheduling storage and flexible loads within customer-set limits. This allows homes to charge batteries or run heat pumps when power prices are lower, while aggregating that flexibility across many homes for use in energy markets and grid services.

Those pooled systems can generate revenue in several ways, including feeding electricity back when supply is tight, lowering grid fees by shifting demand, and trading on intraday power markets where prices change in real time. Installers can offer the virtual power plant service under their own name while Cloover handles the underlying processes.

Valentin Gönczy linked that model to the group's wider use of artificial intelligence. "Everything we do runs on AI, from the underwriting to the way we optimize energy in each home," said Gönczy. "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."

Market backdrop

Cloover is expanding as electricity demand across Europe is expected to rise with the electrification of transport, heating and parts of industry, alongside growing demand from data centres. At the same time, pressure on grids and continued price volatility have increased interest in technologies that let households generate, store and manage their own electricity.

The company also pointed to policy changes affecting the residential solar market. Across Europe, support systems such as feed-in tariffs and net metering are being revised or phased out, changing the economics for households that export surplus electricity back to the grid.

Cloover argues that households will increasingly need to create value not simply by generating electricity but by offering flexibility, such as shifting when they consume or release power. That is the basis of its virtual power plant model, which aims to combine thousands of smaller assets into a single pool that can respond to market signals.

Peder Broms said that shift could change how the energy transition is financed and delivered. "The hardware for the energy transition already works," said Broms. "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."