Since its founding in 2016, Porsche Ventures has been strategically investing in business models in the areas of customer experience, mobility and digital lifestyles. The venture capitalist helps start-ups to grow within a well-established partner ecosystem. With its venture capital activities, Porsche aims to make strategic investments in young companies that are in their founding and growth phases. As a holistic venture program, this includes making venture capital and start-up investments as well as playing the role of an incubator.
Porsche Ventures sees itself as partners of the start-ups in their portfolio. The venture capitalist continues to provide strategic support to the founders after the investment, but also wants to learn from them. That’s why Porsche Ventures wants to introduce the minds behind the ideas in a new series: #PioneersForPorsche. The series picks up on what they do but, above all, why they do it. It’s starting with Philipp Schröder, Founder of 1KOMMA5°, one of the latest investments in the Porsche Ventures’ portfolio.
Schröder’s mission: a future for everyone
The mission of 1KOMMA5° is emblazoned in the name: a future for everyone by achieving the Paris Climate Agreement’s target to reduce global warming to 1.5 degrees. The Hamburg-based start-up has set itself the goal of expanding the market for carbon-neutral and decentralized energy in private households in a sustainable way, thereby accelerating the transition to low-carbon and carbon-neutral energy.
For Philipp Schröder, 1KOMMA5° is not his first start-up – nor the first successful one. The serial founder once broke off his studies to start his first company. After successful stints at, among others, Sonnen, a specialist for energy storage systems, he became publicly visible in a new role: in 2013, Elon Musk appointed him as Country Director for Germany at Tesla. He’s considered a gifted salesman and an absolute expert in the world of renewable energy. With 1KOMMA5°, he’s now driving forward his vision to provide everyone with affordable and easy access to the best climate technologies.
#PioneersForPorsche dare to build their dream. When asking Philipp Schröder, what his biggest inspiration as a founder is, two things came in his mind: “The creation of a tipping point and its sheer power when it unfolds like an explosion into true lasting change for the better. And our capability as humans of changing anything we want that is physically possible.”
Clean energy technologies on a large scale
The way 1KOMMA5° works is to acquire interests in leading electrical installation companies across Europe with a focus on renewable energies (solar self-supply, heat pumps, energy storage), supporting them with digitalization efforts and the centralization of administrative tasks as well as providing growth capital. At the same time, networking concepts are being developed to make installed devices available for the energy services of the future via proprietary applications and interfaces – for example, smart electricity tariffs and virtual power plant concepts. In this way, they want to create better, simpler and more scalable processes, as well as enable lower costs for the end user – while boosting the roll-out speed needed to reach the 1.5 degree target before 2035.
“We want to invest more than 100 million euros in acquisitions over the next two years and in doing so become the one-stop shop for climate-neutral building technology,” Philipp Schröder plans. In 2022, the start-up will open flagship stores in German cities to introduce the ideas of a ‘carbon-neutral home’ and ‘carbon-neutral office’ to a broader audience. The first showrooms, modelled on Apple, are planned at Hamburg’s Binnenalster and in Lingen an der Ems. Philipp Schröder explains: “The core idea of 1KOMMA5° is that every person – even without policy changes – can make their home carbon-neutral and actually save money in the process. With Porsche’s support, we want to become the backbone of the decentralized and renewable energy transition.”
Porsche Ventures is part of the Porsche start-up ecosystem
1KOMMA5° is one of the latest companies in the Porsche Ventures portfolio, joining technology and sports car company Rimac Automobili, Israeli start-ups TriEye and Anagog, mobility and roadside assistance platform Urgent.ly, Swiss head-up display specialists WayRay and fitness company VAHA. Porsche Ventures’ global team is closely networked with the digital experts at Porsche Digital, Berlin-based early-stage investor APX and company builder Forward31. Currently, Porsche Ventures holds a stake in around 30 companies and its annual investment framework amounts to €150 million. These commitments provide Porsche with sustainable access to the digital ecosystem and allow the company to learn and develop in a strategic manner.