ecoworks, a global leader for climate-neutral renovation, has closed a €40 million funding round led by World Fund, with participation from Haniel, KOMPAS VC, and ISAI. The high level of investor interest was driven by the rapidly rising demand for this market in Europe, spanning the residential, industrial and commercial sectors.
Around 50 Percent of the 315 million residential units in Europe have energy performance ratings of E or worse. Retrofitting these buildings requires multi-trillion investments in the EU alone until 2030. Homes with a low performance will be particularly burdened by high energy prices, and more stringent global regulation of built environment emissions. They also increasingly lose value and become therefore stranded assets.
Founded in 2019, ecoworks aims to reduce built environment CO2 emissions by offering renovation and retrofitting with an energy efficient building skin. The Berlin startup is able to retrofit apartment blocks and increase their value by 100 percent and more. ecoworks’ facade elements are already equipped with integrated windows, insulation and building services. The company has been implementing its innovative solutions into an array of buildings in Germany, continually developing its product range.
“The financing round was almost three times oversubscribed. This shows the enormous interest in solutions for the upcoming European renovation wave,” said Emanuel Heisenberg, founder of ecoworks. “With our order book and increasing margins, ecoworks has the potential to become a European tech leader in the construction market.”
World Fund only invests in startups with the greatest climate performance potential, and the decision to lead the funding round was based upon the carbon savings that can be achieved through retrofitting. ecoworks targets to reduce GHG emissions by over 1 gigaton CO2 by 2045.
“Almost 75% of buildings in Europe are considered energy inefficient. Currently, the renovation rate is less than 1%,” commented Daria Saharova, Managing Partner at World Fund. “ecoworks is a retrofitting tech leader that is primed to benefit from regulatory demands for renovation of existing buildings, and increasing capital for reducing carbon emissions in the sector”.
“As a pioneer and market leader in the field of climate-friendly serial renovation, ecoworks fits perfectly into Haniel’s mission statement “enkelfähig”, under which we build sustainable and successful business models. We are delighted to be part of ecoworks’ journey and to support Emanuel Heisenberg’s team in their goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a total of more than 1 gigaton of CO₂ by 2045,” added Philipp Göhre, Growth Partner at Haniel.
“Our investment in ecoworks reflects our unwavering commitment to creating a sustainable, efficient and resilient built environment. Currently, Europe faces the challenge of an aging building stock ill-equipped to cope with the rapidly changing climate. ecoworks is uniquely placed to meet the growing demand for climate-neutral refurbishments through its transformative technology — and is spearheading efforts to facilitate sustainable and cost-effective renovation of buildings across Europe. By investing in advanced technologies and embracing sustainable practices, we firmly believe that we can address the challenges of climate change and an aging housing stock head-on,” said Andreas Winter-Extra, Partner at KOMPAS VC.
