Lars-Manuel Schneider

In 2020, my two co-founders got kicked out of their internships. I got sent home from work. COVID shut everything down. We had one thing going for us: a year of accumulated knowledge in simulating renewable energy systems from our research at the Fraunhofer Institute. So we built a software product. And sold it to car dealerships. Yes, car dealerships. Then utilities. Then anyone who'd buy. Bootstrapping teaches you what money is worth. It also makes you chase every revenue opportunity you can find — whether it's your vision or not. None of it was our vision. Not really. Then we had an exciting idea. What if solar installers are the ones who’d benefit from our work the most? I cold-called 20 solar installers. 10 took a demo. 6 showed up. 3 bought on the spot. We'd never had a customer buy on the spot before. That's when we realized: the people actually driving the energy transition — installers — had no purpose-built tools. They were running businesses on pen, paper, and 3–5 disconnected software tools that don't talk to each other. 200,000+ installation companies across Europe. Most of them under 20 people. Struggling to grow a business. All of them great at installing. So we built Reonic. One AI-powered platform that replaces everything an installer needs to design, sell, and manage solar and heat pump projects. System design, CRM, digital offers, project management, grid registration, subsidies — all in one place. Today: ⚡ 2,000+ customers across 6 countries. ⚡€13M Series A led by Northzone. ⚡A team of 100+ that started as three friends from university. The energy transition only works if the people driving it can build profitable, scalable businesses. That's what we're here for. → Follow me for honest takes on building in climate tech, scaling across Europe and globally, and the future of the energy transition.