468 Capital, J12 Ventures, Global Founders Capital and Übermorgen Ventures, together with key angel investors, invest in Ostrom to scale its tech, team, and suite of energy products

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Berlin, 10 January 2022 09:00 CET – 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.

Energy Suppliers Unprepared for Electrification Wave

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.

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"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."

Alexander Kudlich, General Partner at lead investor 468 Capital

Phenomenal Growth and Traction Since Launch

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.

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“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.”

Matthias Martensen, co-founder and CEO at Ostrom

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“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.”

Karl Villanueva, co-founder and CMO/CPO at Ostrom

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Veritable List of Top Angel Investors

Alongside institutional investors, Ostrom has raised from multiple angels with backgrounds in sustainability, operations and user acquisition. These include:

• Philip Klöckner, advisor & early-stage investor, Doppelgänger TechTalk Podcast host
• Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, co-founder & CEO at Dance and co-founder of SoundCloud
• Jörg Kattner, co-founder of Gorillas
• Maximilian Backhaus, Global CMO at HelloFresh
• Julian Weselek, co-founder & CEO at Tourlane
• Moss Founder Team (Ante Spittler, Anton Rummel, Ferdinand Meyer & Stephan Haslebacher)
• Diana Zur Löwen, creator and influencer

Partners Explain Reason For Investing In Ostrom

Despite the headwinds in the energy industry, Ostrom’s investors are looking at the long game of the energy transition. If anything, it has shown the need for a digital-native disruptor in the space.

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“We've been thoroughly impressed by the power of execution of Matthias and Karl, who between them possess a deep insight into the market, and a strong approach to customer acquisition - as seen by their impressive growth to date - and we're excited to join them in pursuit of their vision to really make green energy simple.”

Emmet King, Partner at J12 Ventures

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“GFC has been closely following Ostrom since the early days. Over the course of 2021 we were impressed to see how rapidly Matthias, Karl and their team implemented the product and achieved product-market fit. We are excited to be part of the journey going forward and helping the team build the most customer-centric, mobile-first, and transparent green energy retailer in Germany and beyond.”

Dr. Jan Ossenbrink, Partner at Global Founders Capital

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“We have invested in Ostrom because we believe they have a very scalable business model that will disrupt the energy sector and empower the consumer while making the German energy mix substantively greener. This way, Ostrom will generate a high decarbonization impact as well as high revenues. Precisely that combination is what we are looking for in a portfolio company.”

Adrian Bührer, Partner at Übermorgen Ventures

About Ostrom

Ostrom is a digital green energy provider headquartered in Berlin. Ostrom makes switching to green energy accessible and affordable and is building the energy service platform of the future — one flexible monthly tariff, no lock-ins, and an all-digital experience. Additionally, end-to-end multilingual support, responsive live customer chat, and 100% green energy sourced via direct power purchasing agreements (PPAs) have made Ostrom the #1 rated utility in Germany, with a 4.9/5.0 rating on Trustpilot.

About 468 Capital

468 Capital is a venture capital firm based in Berlin and San Francisco. Founded by Alexander Kudlich, Ludwig Ensthaler and Florian Leibert, 468 Capital invests from Day 0 through Seed and Series A & B.

About J12 Ventures

J12 is a pre-seed and seed stage venture capital firm based in Stockholm, partnering early with teams building groundbreaking companies enabled by software, data, and new technologies across industries.

About Global Founders Capital

Global Founders Capital is a globally-oriented, stage-agnostic venture capital firm that empowers gifted entrepreneurs worldwide.

1 - Global: We support founders in all geographies.
2 - Stage-Agnostic: We back companies across all stages and throughout the lifecycle.
3 - Operational: Our platform offers founders all the support they need to scale.

About Übermorgen Ventures

Ünermorgen Ventures is an early-stage venture capital investment company backing entrepreneurs, who understand that climate change mitigation is not only the responsibility of our generation but also the potentially biggest business opportunity of our time. Übermorgen is based in Zurich.

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