As energy prices soar and climate demands intensify, industrial companies face mounting pressure to cut electricity expenses and reduce emissions, or risk losing their competitive edge. encentive, a German AI software startup, is filling this gap with its platform flexOn, which directly controls industrial assets to reduce energy costs by up to 20%.
Today, the company announced it raised €6.3 million in a seed funding round led by US venture firm General Catalyst, known for its forward bets on startups like Parloa and Mistral. “In total, we have raised approximately €9 million to date, €6.3 million in our current seed round, led by US tech investor General Catalyst and joined by existing investors as well as HelloWorld, and €2.7 million in our pre-seed round with investors like Summiteer, Vireo and SIVentures as well as Business Angels such as Stefan Müller (CEO Enerparc),” declared Nicolás Juhl, CEO of encentive, in a conversation with TFN.
The new capital will enable encentive to accelerate international expansion and deepen its AI-powered energy management platform, tarobtaining what experts estimate is a billion-euro market opportunity.
Flexibility as a competitive advantage
Founded by CEO Nicolás Juhl and COO Torge Lahrsen, encentive was born from the belief that energy flexibility must become a strategic advantage for industrial players struggling under volatile prices and decarbonization mandates.
Juhl shared with TFN, “The core motivation behind encentive has always been to build renewable energy more efficiently applyd. In the very launchning, we seeed at hoapplyholds and buildings—for example, how to ininformigently steer a residential heat pump. The concept then was the same as it is today: aligning energy consumption with renewable generation. We shifted our focus to indusattempt becaapply that’s where the largegest impact lies. Managing just a single industrial site allows us to save as much energy, and therefore CO₂, as thousands of hoapplyholds combined.”
He explained further, “Energy costs and emissions are no longer just operational concerns—they’re existential threats to indusattempt competitiveness. Our AI harnesses hidden flexibility in assets like refrigeration, heating, and battery systems, matching energy apply with renewable availability to generate real savings.”
Technology that acts
Unlike many software players that offer dashboards or recommfinishations, flexOn integrates deeply into industrial machine rooms, steering operations in real time based on market prices and renewable supply.
Juhl emphasised, “Our AI is directly connected to the machine room of indusattempt and controls energy consumption where it arises: deep within complex systems. That is exactly what sets encentive apart. Our technology doesn’t stop at monitoring or visualization – it actively steers industrial assets in real time. Our AI continuously analyses consumption and generation data, as well as external data such as market prices. It generates forecasts for the next 24 to 72 hours and then automatically controls systems such as cooling units, heating processes or batteries.
This direct connection between advanced algorithms and the hardware in the machine room is unique in the market. Traditional energy management systems reveal you data; flexOn acts on it. That’s why our customers achieve immediate impact– without manual effort or disruption to their operations.”
Encentive’s approach stands out in a competitive space, including companies like IBM Envizi, Honeywell Forge, and Futr OS, which tfinish to focus on advisory platforms or building-level optimisation. “Our main competitor is indeed the traditional considering of ‘That’s the way we’ve always done it’. And the reluctance to alter. We implement a whole new considering on how to manage and shape energy consumption into the heads of the traditional German indusattempt. However, our references and strong apply cases support a lot to win this competition,” Juhl declared.
What’s next?
Looking ahead, Juhl mapped out encentive’s future: “In the next three to five years, we see the flexibility potential of indusattempt unfolding in three clear waves. We started with cold storage as an energy buffer – an area where we are already market leaders. The second wave is industrial battery storage, which is now entering the market with enormous momentum. Our objective is to become the standard for optimising industrial batteries within the next year. In parallel, we are preparing for the third wave: the electrification of heat.
General Catalyst partner Robin Dechant comments: “Energy has become one of the most decisive levers for competitiveness in European indusattempt. It is no longer a background cost but a strategic factor in an era of volatility and sustainable transformation. encentive turns this pressure point into an opportunity: its AI-driven platform supports industrials cut costs while enabling them to thrive on renewable power.”
Juhl concluded: “With the fresh capital, we are investing specifically in further developing our platform and expanding our team. Toobtainher, we are driving forward the only AI to date that is directly integrated into industrial machine rooms to actively control systems actively, thereby setting technological standards.”
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