IN Brief:
- 1KOMMA5° has secured a funding round initially exceeding €70m, led by b2venture and joined by Marunouchi Innovation Partners.
- The company plans to invest more than €100m in Heartbeat AI during 2027, combining new financing with operating cash flow.
- Heartbeat AI manages more than 100,000 connected systems, with controllable flexibility capacity exceeding 1GW across five markets.
German energy technology company 1KOMMA5° has secured a new financing round with an initial volume exceeding €70m to accelerate development of its Heartbeat AI energy management platform. The Hamburg-based business intends to invest more than €100m in the software during 2027, combining the new capital with funds generated by its existing operations.
The round was led by venture capital investor b2venture, with Marunouchi Innovation Partners joining as a new shareholder. Existing investors including CalSTRS, eCapital, G2 Venture Partners and Eurazeo also participated. The financing values the company at $1.35bn before the new investment, representing a 35% increase in its pre-money valuation compared with July 2025.
Approximately €70m of the planned 2027 spending will come from the new financing, with a further €35m expected to be provided through operating cash flow. The company intends to increase investment in software development, artificial intelligence capabilities and commercial deployment, extending a platform already connected to a substantial portfolio of distributed energy equipment.
Heartbeat AI coordinates technologies installed at individual properties, including photovoltaic systems, residential batteries, electric vehicle chargers, heat pumps and air conditioning. These devices affect electricity consumption or generation in different ways, but each can potentially provide some flexibility over when electricity is produced, stored or used.
A household battery can be charged when electricity is relatively inexpensive or renewable generation is abundant, then discharged later to supply local demand or export power. Electric vehicle charging can be scheduled within the time available before a planned journey, while heat pumps may have limited scope to shift consumption depending on the building’s thermal characteristics and comfort requirements.
The platform must account for those different constraints when making control decisions. A battery’s available capacity depends on its state of charge and inverter rating, whereas charging equipment must deliver sufficient energy before a vehicle is needed. Heating systems operate within temperature limits, making their available flexibility dependent on conditions that change throughout the day.
By coordinating large numbers of connected devices, Heartbeat AI operates as a virtual power plant. Unlike a conventional power station, the electrical resources remain distributed across customers’ premises, with software managing their combined response to electricity market conditions. The system requires information from participating equipment and suitable communication interfaces to determine which devices can respond to a particular instruction.
1KOMMA5° reported in May 2026 that the platform had passed 1GW of controllable flexibility capacity, doubling its portfolio within a year. The figure describes the aggregate capacity connected to the system rather than a guarantee that all of it can be dispatched simultaneously. Actual availability depends on the operating condition of individual devices, customer requirements and applicable network restrictions.
The company has also opened Heartbeat AI to third-party equipment and existing installations, expanding its potential market beyond customers purchasing complete new energy systems from 1KOMMA5°. This requires software capable of communicating with different manufacturers’ equipment and interpreting the capabilities and operating limits of each connected system.
Interoperability is consequently an important part of the platform’s development. Energy equipment may use different communication interfaces, device controllers and data formats, while the extent of external control varies between manufacturers. A management platform needs reliable information about the equipment it controls, together with safeguards that prevent commercial dispatch instructions from overriding essential device protection or customer requirements.
The usefulness of aggregated flexibility also depends on where the equipment is connected. Moving electricity consumption away from periods of high demand can reduce the amount purchased at expensive times, but a control action does not automatically relieve every local network constraint. The electrical location of an asset and the characteristics of its connection influence whether a particular change in demand or export benefits the surrounding network.
Heartbeat AI currently optimises more than 100,000 systems, according to the company, while 1KOMMA5° has installed more than 300,000 decentralised, controllable energy systems since its foundation. These are different measures: the installed equipment portfolio is larger than the number of systems reported as being optimised by the software. The company operates in seven markets overall, with Heartbeat AI’s flexibility portfolio extending across five.
The company said its core hardware business is profitable at the EBITDA level and generating positive operating cash flow. It also expects organic revenue growth of 35% to 40% in 2026, although the figures are company-reported and the full-year result remains a forecast.
Separate financing facilities of up to €1.5bn have been arranged for public-sector and private customer projects. These support the acquisition and deployment of physical energy equipment and are distinct from the new investment in Heartbeat AI. The company says the financing arrangements leave its own balance sheet free of debt.
The new funding will increase spending on the software that links these installations to electricity markets. Its future effectiveness will depend on the number and characteristics of connected devices, the reliability of control interfaces and the ability to turn distributed flexibility into dispatchable services while respecting equipment and network operating limits.
