Why We’ve Invested in Enter: The Most Simple Solution to Having a Truly Sustainable Home
By Ricardo Schaefer & Jonas Kern
The sudden spike of energy prices all over Europe — acutely felt this Winter — put the ClimateTech sector in sharp focus as we thought about ways the technology sector could address the shortcomings in our energy supply chain and how it impacts consumers.
During our deep dive into the market, we heard from countless homeowners that had all the right intentions of implementing sustainable retrofittings in their homes, but a truly dismal experience when it came to putting their good intentions to work. Frustrations they shared with us included having to endure months of lag time before getting appointments with certified consultants, having to navigate a bureaucratic jungle in order to access subsidies and new red tape appearing from every corner, amongst countless other things.
So when we met Enter, we were blown away by how one company could offer such a simple solution to address all of these pain points. We knew Max and his excellence as an operator through his time at Target portfolio company McMakler, and combined with Justus and Alexander’s backgrounds in architecture and energy efficiency, it quickly became clear that this was the team that we wanted to back.
Homeowners are often overwhelmed by the hundreds of potential upgrades available in the market — everything from installing solar panels on their roof to getting a heat pump. Every single provider has an incentive to market their product, even though it may not be the best choice for a specific home. Enter takes a radically different approach by acting as a truly independent advisor, helping consumers navigate the plethora of offerings and empowering them to pick the products with the highest impact on the sustainability of their homes.
Did you know that buildings are responsible for around 35% of all energy consumption and 30% of total CO2 emissions, mainly driven by low energy efficiency of those properties?
Despite their massive ecological impact, these buildings are being renovated at a much slower pace than what is needed in order to achieve Europe’s climate goals. In Germany alone, over one million residential units need to be renovated a year, which is over five times the rate that’s currently being renovated. This leaves over 14 million residential buildings in Germany using way more energy than needed, leaving behind tons of emissions and costing homeowners way more than it should.
One major bottleneck is the access to energy efficiency consultants who can perform the energy audits necessary to be eligible for state subsidies. There are around 7,000 certified “energy efficiency experts” in Germany, with a majority of them doing this job part-time alongside their main jobs as either architects or engineers. Their current operating modem is incredibly inefficient given they usually work alone and without any software to assist with collecting data about the building or filling out the complex audit documents (which can be as long as 40 pages and are mandatory)! Understandably, these inefficiencies result in significant delays to any potential projects.
Financing poses another obstacle for homeowners as 75% of them believe they cannot afford energy-efficient renovations and fear they lack the tools needed to make an informed decision about making lasting changes to their energy consumption. What many of them fail to realize is that there are tons of incentives and subsidies for homeowners from the government to make homes energy efficient. Meaning that above all else, this is an issue of a) lack of awareness and b) too much ambiguity around what has the potential to be a relatively seamless and straightforward process.
Just recently, the German government imposed additional regulatory pressure towards the implementation of more sustainable and efficient heating systems, which will further drive demand for more efficient energy audits and easier access to financing.
Meet Enter.
Enter provides an end-to-end platform to help homeowners improve the energy efficiency of their homes. It does so by offering one stop energy audits, procurement, financing and energy monitoring to identify the full energy potential of a home and to allow homeowners to access a suite of energy-saving home improvement products bespoke to their needs.
How it works:
Customers are asked to complete a digital survey and within minutes receive a comprehensive assessment of their building’s energy status, along with a breakdown of potential savings from various renovation measures.
Enter offers a personalized energy consultation, followed by a unique energy renovation roadmap (iSFP) for each household, and takes care of the entire subsidy application process as well as the financing. With Enter’s support, homeowners can enjoy lower energy costs and reduced CO2 emissions, benefiting both the environment and themselves.
Despite being the new kids on the block, Enter has already supported over 3,000 homeowners in their transition to a greener future while helping save millions of euros on cumulative energy bills. We strongly believe Enter has the potential to become one of the most transformational companies in the European energy tech sector, and we’re proud to continue supporting the team together with our friends from Foundamental, Coatue and A/O Proptech, as well as a number of founders including Oliver Merkel (Flink), Hanno Heintzenberg (MAYD, McMakler), Dr. Daniel Kreter (Taxfix) and Johannes Roggendorf (Medwing).
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Target Global is an pan-European investment firm with €3bn+ in capital commitments and co-investments. With offices in London, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Barcelona, and Abu Dhabi, we connect the key European startup ecosystems and leverage the unique DNA of each of our target geographies, across our global network. Building on our experienced team with substantial operational and investment experience, we help exceptional entrepreneurs to build market leaders. Target Global invests across multiple stages, investing in fast-growing tech companies, targeting trillion € markets. Our partners have been investing for more than 15 years in the digital technology space, backing some of the key European success stories. The Target Global portfolio includes companies such as Auto1, Delivery Hero, Docplanner, Rapyd, TravelPerk, and wefox.
