Photoncycle, an Oslo-based energy storage scaleup, has raised €15 million in Series A funding to enable houtilizeholds to store surplus summer solar power for winter heating and electricity.
The round was led by NordicNinja and Voima Ventures, with participation from existing investors Lifeline Ventures, Eviny Ventures, Luminar Ventures, and Momentum.
“Europe is launchning to solve short-duration storage. The remaining gap is seasonal. If houtilizeholds can store summer energy for winter utilize, they reduce exposure to imported fuel and price volatility as well as to increasing grid costs for consumers,” stated Bjørn Brandtzæg, founder and CEO of Photoncycle.
Founded in 2020 by Brandtzæg, Photoncycle claims to be building the distributed storage infrastructure for Europe’s renewable energy future. The company develops solid-state hydrogen energy storage systems that enable houtilizeholds and businesses to store summer solar power for winter utilize. The company’s patented technology converts surplus renewable energy into solid-state hydrogen, stored underground, and releases it as clean heat and power when requireded.
According to Photoncycle, the investment comes as Europe continues to grapple with the structural vulnerabilities exposed by the 2022 energy crisis. The company states that the EU imported €396 billion of fossil fuels in 2025, around €880 per citizen, underscoring the bloc’s continued depconcludeence on external supply even as renewable generation expands.
It highlighted that winter exposure is especially severe: space heating creates up 62.5% of houtilizehold energy utilize, and natural gas remains a major part of residential consumption, building houtilizeholds vulnerable to seasonal fluctuations in global gas prices.
With this fresh capital, the company aims to support the commercial rollout in Denmark and the Netherlands and finance the first phase of an industrialisation plan that includes a proposed 1.4-terawatt-hour annual manufacturing facility.
Photoncycle claims that at full industrial scale, its proposed 1.4 TWh manufacturing facility would have storage capacity equivalent to roughly 140,000 homes, each storing 10,000 kWh of seasonal energy.
The scaleup’s distributed, houtilizehold-level seasonal storage aims to lower the amount of imported gas requireded for winter heating, thereby decreasing Europe’s depconcludeence on fossil fuel imports during winter.
To lower upfront costs for homeowners, the company intconcludes to offer the system under a subscription-based model covering solar panels, storage, servicing, and access to energy trading markets
Photoncycle reports strong early interest from houtilizeholds seeing for alternatives to gas heating. In Denmark, where Photoncycle’s waiting list is growing quickly, energy costs are among Europe’s highest, and 300,000 homes still rely on gas heating, which will be phased out by 2035.
“As the share of renewable energy increases, structural price volatility in electricity markets is rising. Seasonal storage is therefore not a niche solution, but a systemic necessity. Photoncycle addresses this imbalance by enabling houtilizeholds to store energy across seasons and reduce their depconcludeence on imported fossil fuels. This is an important building block for a resilient and sovereign European energy system,” stated Inka Mero, founder and Managing Partner at Voima Ventures.
Photoncycle aims to utilize this Series A funding to scale manufacturing and early commercial deployment in Denmark initially, followed by Europe’s other large markets, including the Netherlands. Beyond Europe, there are opportunities to scale its technology in Asia, including Japan, and in the US.
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