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Smart Charge · 27 February 2025 · 58 min

Ep. 4: Zwei Startups, Zwei Erfolge – Klaus Huber über Gründergeist, Energieinnovation & Flottenelektrifizierung

Transcript

Cleaned up from a machine transcript. Translations are machine-generated and may contain errors.

Welcome to the Smart Charge by RiDERgy Podcast. This is Claudio Geyken, Founder and CEO of RiDERgy. This is your show to learn about all things energy management and smart charging innovation for electric vehicles and fleets.

Yes. Hello, Klaus. Great to have you here today. How are you doing today? Hello, Claudio. Thanks for the invitation. I'm doing great. That's wonderful. That you also managed to make it from Munich today – I also had Simon Herzog on, who also came from Munich, and we managed to make it work with him too. Great that it's also working out with you here. And what brought you to Berlin today, apart from the recording, of course? Well, you of course, and many other energy topics that I want to discuss over these two days. Mainly storage – energy storage

in combination with charging solutions. And tomorrow I'll also be attending the BVES event. The BVES – for our listeners – is the storage association, exactly, the German Association for Energy Storage Systems, battery storage. I think they also do hydrogen and other storage topics, but the biggest subject is definitely battery-electric storage. Yes, a topic that's really gaining momentum. At E-World in particular last week, or two weeks ago, one of the main themes – I believe – was how many storage systems are really coming now. Exactly. So the mood in that

sector couldn't be better, from small portable camping power cubes, so to speak, all the way up to 100-megawatt large-scale storage systems. At all levels, people are very positive about it. Yes, before we dive deeper into that – the topic, I think we already hinted that it might be a subject for you again soon – let's first look back and bring the listeners up to speed. Perhaps you can tell us a bit about your background. You can go back as far as you like, however you

normally describe yourself, so we know who Klaus Huber is. Exactly. Well, I'm already a bit older and have a long professional and also eventful private history. As a student, I actually didn't deal with the topic of energy at all, but studied literature and had many topics in the areas of politics, theatre, literature as my study subjects. I found it all good for study purposes, but wanted to do something completely different professionally and then very quickly ended up in consulting – strategy consulting – at what was then Booz Allen and Hamilton,

a large management consultancy. But I always focused on building new business models, back then mobile telephony, internet services, as it was called at the time, and from around the 2000s onwards then with solar energy, PV, and so came via various routes – project development, financing – finally in 2007 to the topic of biomethane and together with a former work colleague founded a biomethane trading platform: BMP Green Gas. BMP stands for Biomethane Platform, so a trading house for biomethane. Because we started out so focused on biomethane, we were immediately and always the largest trader that

existed. And BMP Green Gas is still a major trader in the German market today. I was also pleased to see them in Essen at E-World with a large stand. I pushed this topic forward until about 2011 and then focused on mobility and renewable energy. And you pretty quickly arrive at the topic of electromobility. That was still very early in 2010 and also too early for some business models. And so things continued for some time with other ideas, until

2014 – Robin Geißler and I – met with similar ideas and considered how to offer services in the area of mobility and electromobility where you bring together renewable electricity and mobility. Okay. Yes, we'll dive into that shortly. Before we do that, can you take us through it again: That was essentially the founding of this marketplace. How did the founding of the first company come about back then? How did you gather the courage and know: okay, there's a lot of potential here? And that it

was then also the first company – if I understood correctly – for you, which still exists today and is therefore also sustainably successful. Exactly. So back then the model was also founded, as so often, from two essential factors. One is: Something changed in the market legally or technologically. And the other was simply luck and seeing the opportunity at the right time. So the first point was: The German gas market was liberalized, you could become a gas trader as a private company. The second was:

You could technically process biogas so that it had natural gas quality, meaning chemically it was methane and thus could be fed into the German natural gas network. So these two legal and technological changes led to biomethane actually being physically present in the gas network. And that naturally raised the question: How do I distribute it? How do I sell it? How do I trade it? How do I transport it? And the second part of the story – the fortunate situation – was that a former work colleague of mine had accompanied a biomethane feed-in project, the first

German feed-in plant in Planing near Munich. And it was completed in 2007 and ready for operation. And so the idea logically arose: We now need to set up a trading platform so that this biomethane can be traded. And we arranged these two points so that one focused on production and project development, the other on trading, and from that we founded a start-up called BMP Green Gas. During an excursion, if you like, an offsite or a strategy workshop at Lake Walchensee. And we simply stayed

together until we had a name. Interesting. And in the spirit of – because this podcast is also partly very much about intelligent charging of electric vehicles, but also embedded in the energy system: biomethane. How do you see that developing in the future, in Germany, in the world? It's perhaps a topic that isn't as much in the foreground now as wind and solar and battery storage. But gas, of course, as an important energy source – that will also become stronger in the future. What trends do you

see in biomethane? My personal assessment would be that biomethane is a market that will continue to develop on a stable plateau, that cannot open up very many innovations or very many new usage paths. Biomethane is already used today in various areas for heat generation, electricity generation as well as fuel in the mobility sector. And I think that with the scalability of hydrogen or green hydrogen production, biomethane will simply see its share and importance become a bit smaller. So I believe that biomethane is simply not scalable in the way that other energy carriers are. And that

was also a reason for us to say we want to develop into the electricity sector, because we simply saw much more development potential there. Yes, again for context: the lack of scalability, to my knowledge, arises because we simply don't have enough cultivation area, because much of this biomethane comes from agriculture. Exactly. So the material flows are simply not scalable in the way that energy production for electricity is. And therefore it's always a competition for land, which is also very rightly discussed very intensively in Germany. And if

you look at the topic globally as well, then it's simply always a niche product, because it competes with many other resource uses. Yes, and to ask again: How did this exit with the company come about? Why did you then – the company still exists – how did the decision come about to move to the next company? It was a point, I think, at which the business model was established. We had built up a portfolio in Germany. And then the question always is: The company was also thirty to forty people strong. What

do the next steps look like? So do you want to internationalise? Do you want to go into the hydrogen sector? Do you want to join forces with a major partner? Do you want to focus on growing a workforce, a staff? For me it was always clear: I'm good at founding and building. And a company that has thirty, forty employees then takes on a new character and requires different competencies, different leaders, different decision-making rules. And that didn't appeal to me as much as doing something new. And this opportunity to do something new

presented itself. And so I found it more tempting to turn to a new topic. And finally on that phase: Were there high points and also points where you almost had to close the company? And what was the motivation to keep going? Just so people understand – mostly it's a bit of a rollercoaster with the first company. We also have many founders listening who perhaps couldn't make their first company as successful as you did. Maybe you also have

a few tips in that direction. Well, first of all, it's very good if you have youthful confidence when building a company and perhaps in a positive sense pursue your idea with a certain thoughtlessness. That certainly helps. We were also told in the early phase by many experts, practitioners from the trading field, trading of commodities, of energy, that we would have to invest at least twenty to thirty million euros to be able to set up such a trading platform. And we didn't invest that amount. By the way, we had

no financing rounds in that case, but were able to build it up ourselves with start-up capital. And so from that perspective I can only say: don't be discouraged at all, but really pursue the idea and see that you make the right adjustments. Of course there were always critical questions too: Is biomethane marketable at all? Is biomethane a pure EEG-subsidised product – so EEG for Renewable Energy Act? Is biomethane even a proper energy carrier in Germany? So these up-and-down considerations are completely normal. And we had, yes, perhaps

competence and luck. And also good employees with whom we were able to build it up successfully. Yes, exciting. And then, as I said, the second company took its course. And how was that? What were the first steps, and how did you approach it? Did you have the same idea straight away? Or did you pivot, to use the modern term? How can you imagine it? Well, Robin and I had known each other for seven years by 2014 and had, together with two other employees who also came from the earlier

company had been known to us for a long time, a four-person team at the start, which was very helpful for getting active together. We knew each other well. We had the same conviction about the direction, about the way of working, about the idea that would drive us forward. In 2014, Robin and I approached this topic from different angles. Generally speaking, we actually developed the e-mobility business model from the energy sector, not from the vehicle sector, so for us the idea in a very abstract sense was:

an electric vehicle is like a mobile battery storage system. I can manage this mobile battery storage. I can charge or discharge it by connecting it to a grid. And at the same time I offer someone else a charging solution so they can experience the other function of the mobile storage – namely: I have a vehicle that I can drive around. This founding was also driven by the idea that we thought electric vehicles would prevail. We had already seen the first models on the market. We had the Tesla Model S. Right, the

Zoe was there. We were all waiting for the Model 3 – for a very long time. And we were lucky there again. We met our first customer by chance in the lift from the underground garage to the office. Another company in that building that was dealing with the topic. Of course we were totally enthusiastic. Our first fleet customer already on board before founding. And together with them we're now building up this energy system. Mid-sized company, or how should one imagine it? Exactly, it was a medium-sized company

for IT services. So they also promoted electric vehicles in terms of employer attractiveness. That gave us access to a fleet, so to speak, that would also grow – we could already foresee that back then – and on the other hand also a bit of support on the IT side, which was necessary anyway for our backend and the app. So we were already standing there very enthusiastically at the beginning, had an angel round straight away and were really in the best of spirits, until it actually became clear over the course of 2015

that sales of electric vehicles were simply not taking off at all. Do you happen to remember what the numbers were in 2015? Well, I think around a hundred vehicles a month was the run rate back then. And it wasn't at all foreseeable that many models would come onto the market now. And then again two unplannable events, if you like. Firstly, in September 2015, the news of the diesel scandal at VW. The American environmental authority published this report

and it was quite curious because the report came into the press on Friday, I think around 1 or 2 pm. And at 5 pm we were at a meeting with a futurologist who was talking about the topic: how can I only use petrol for mobility? It's all so finite and so environmentally questionable. So it was a day with a lot going on. And for us initially a positive sign, because that meant that now e-mobility naturally came onto the agenda as an alternative. And the

second topic that helped us was that we could open up the electric bus topic at that moment. So we said, we'll make a little detour. We won't just do charging solutions for cars now, but we'll build charging infrastructure for a regional bus operator who has added ten electric buses to their fleet. And this project naturally sustained us and also helped us financially, so that by spring 2017 we were in good shape – so after a year and a half we'd built a good team, the product was stable – and then intended to

scale broadly. Okay, and to ask again: at the beginning it's always usual that before you have your first customer, you're asked: well, where have you done this before? How was it for you? And how were you able to convey that confidence to the customer so they would trust you? In small steps, to answer that very pragmatically. At the first installations we were all there and learned about this setup and the system ourselves together with the electrician, so to speak. We had experience

from the energy market, so electricity trading, electricity supply. We knew how that works. But the pure physics of a charging station with high-voltage connection, with grid coupling, and also communication to the vehicle – that was very, very concrete hands-on learning. And because we had this first customer who trusted us a lot, because they themselves had been a start-up not so long ago back then – it was already a hundred-person company by then, but with a certain understanding of and interest in a start-up – we had at least one

reference case. With the buses we then had another reference case. And so we were actually able to win Siemens as a very early customer. And that was like a seal of quality. This reference certainly helped us. At the same time, however, we also realised in 2017 that although we had a very good solution offering, we simply couldn't speak on equal terms with DAX companies – so in many sales conversations the realisation was, also expressly stated by the fleet managers or purchasers on the other side: your solution is excellent, it is technically

well thought out, it's economically attractive. But as a large corporation we cannot base our electrification on a ten-person startup. And that was the point for us, around early 2017, when we said: We have to do something here. We either have to take shelter under a large company, or we have to put together very strong financing, or we have to sell ourselves as white label somewhere else. But none of those three options really appealed to us. And so we ended up with a project that we

set up together with an OEM as a large development project, where we said: There are financial resources from both sides, but above all substantive resources, namely our knowledge, our skills, and on the other side a certain sales market and also development interest. And we simply share the usage rights. And this project developed very, very positively, also became much larger than it was originally planned, and gave us a very important boost, I believe, so that by the end of 2017 we actually had a

very stable business and with 50 employees had almost become a proper small company too. Did you say 50 people? Exactly. The other options – those all seemed like very sensible options as well. Perhaps you remember: What were the points where you said, no, absolutely not, let's look for something else? Well, we had begun approaching investors quite early on. That's perhaps also an important recommendation for people listening now who are planning to do something like this. You can be in conversation with investors right from the start and stay

in touch, because it's a long process until that kind of trust builds up. And it's almost never too early, if you have a good idea, to communicate it and also to test it for yourself. In spring 2017 we actually had three options on the table, even very concrete ones. One would have been a strategic investor coming in. We didn't like that because of course we weren't happy with the valuation and we also didn't feel quite comfortable with the future prospects. The

second option would have been to do another angel round. But the volume wouldn't have really taken us forward. And the third option was precisely this development project, where of course we also jumped into cold water, because the difference was huge. We were simply a 15 to 17 person company, and on the other side it was a DAX corporation. So we also didn't know what we were getting into. But we seized the opportunity and achieved a good result for both sides, I believe. Yes, that's exciting.

I believe that also drives many young companies: how to achieve good partnerships with large corporates. Sounds like a recipe for success. What can you also recommend in that direction, what one should pay attention to so that it becomes a success? Well, formally speaking of course, agree in advance what is meant. And that works best by having people on the other side who are also informed on the subject matter, who have a certain ability to assert themselves in their area and also enthusiasm for the topic.

The second point, but actually the more important one was: We set up this workspace in our office. And we had all the people who worked on the topic – both those from the partner company, our people and also external service providers – all sitting together in one room and moderated these people and entertained them and looked after them well and fed them well and so on, and thereby had very, very close contact with the development activities, with project progress and with the substantive design. And that was very, very

important, because we were in a field where people didn't yet know where the journey was going. I could actually recommend that again from today's perspective and would do it like that again, because that also generated a lot of weight in our favour and thus gives you a lot of influence. Yes. Perhaps the next steps that then came from that moment – to tease the story a bit: There was an exit. Perhaps there were still milestones until the exit that you'd like

to mention, both lowlights and highlights. We always had the good fortune that we could attract a lot of talent and create many attractive work opportunities and also always received many, many good applications. So I was always amazed myself at how much knowledge, how much experience these young people already brought with them and with how much enthusiasm, independence and excitement they worked with us. That also works wonderfully up to a size of 50 employees, if you sit together and contribute a lot,

get involved. And as a result we had incredibly good spirit in the company too. We managed to expand our business. We won great projects. We talked a lot about our knowledge at events and were able to show ourselves. And in 2018 we were actually at the point where we said: We now need the next level. We simply want to be able to invest more in infrastructure. We had even set up a securitisation vehicle – probably for the first time in this financing world too – that made charging infrastructure financeable and thus even leasable for

could be made because we saw that such a huge infrastructure need would arise. And so we were again at the point of saying: How can we represent that? And what we saw in 2018, but still, was that venture capital didn't really dare to enter this area or still saw it as very unclear. That started with many seeing it as pure energy sales. A charging station is nothing other than an energy dispensing point. And you can't make money

selling electricity. So there's no innovation there either. I think that was the prevailing wisdom at the time. And the other was that there were still voices questioning e-mobility as a whole. I don't remember exactly when it was – at some point during 2018 VW then announced this all-electric strategy. In hindsight, I also see that as the point at which the industry agreed to say: Okay, so that's

how it is now, now we can invest in the topic. That made the topic more interesting for many investors and strategists. In our case, Stadtcraft approached us in the summer of 2018 – because in Norway they had naturally already looked a bit into the future of e-mobility, to use a euphemism – and had a good picture of what that could look like. And for us it was a fit because, for one thing, it was someone who naturally also had the capital strength to advance us there, for

another they already had a charging solution business in Norway themselves, and thirdly in Germany they were already the largest marketer of renewable energy with their wind and solar portfolio. So a lot of things fit together. And for us it was the only opportunity to go with a strategic partner and realize this leap – the scaling and also the internationalization. Okay, interesting. And to go more into the problems, solutions and technology: What were, so to speak, your company's portfolios? Where did it start and where did it end?

Which use cases did you cover? Exactly. Our original idea was: An employee has a company car and wants to charge it at home. In the combustion engine world, he would have a fuel card with which he drives to the gas station, the costs are billed to the employer, he has nothing to pay, it's VAT-deductible, it's a business expense and so on. We wanted to translate this system to e-mobility and said: We install a charging station at the employee's home, we establish a separate meter point for the electricity supply,

we deliver our own green electricity and we bill the whole thing to the employer, so that the employee can use electricity at home as he wishes for his private living. He can charge very conveniently at home, he doesn't have to invest in infrastructure. But the employer doesn't have to either, because he also gets it as a service like a business expense. And the green electricity proof is definitely provided because the electricity we deliver was purchased as green electricity. So that was the original idea. And it actually carried very far.

Side ideas were then things like bus charging, depot charging, electricity for home, public charging at self-installed charging points. We also did consulting to a certain extent for fleets. So a bit around the edges, but the core topic was developing this home charging – specifically in such a way that you charge the cars overnight when the electricity market offers favorable prices. We represented this optimization with algorithms – back then people didn't yet say AI. Of course we represented it with machine-based purchasing strategies and managed an electricity portfolio

where we purchased on the quarter-hour market, directly on the quarter-hour market. So, for listeners: There is the spot market where it's actually hourly – in day-ahead and intraday it's more 15-minute intervals. And were you yourselves an energy supplier, or did you work together with energy suppliers? I believe there was also a publication with Next Kraftwerke, who are among the best-known virtual power plants in Germany. You worked together there. Exactly. So we ourselves

had the status of energy supplier. And we had a lot of experience with that topic from the previous company, where we were also an energy supplier – in the gas sector, not electricity. But we knew these energy industry topics well and therefore also became a supplier ourselves right away. However, we didn't want to design all market roles and all market processes ourselves. That's why we also looked for partners. Above all, we also needed stock exchange access, meaning an intermediary who provides us with stock exchange access. These points and also the innovation and the

digital offerings from Next Kraftwerke then led us to team up there. That means, if I understood correctly, you already had quite a large package of services for different types of fleets. My understanding of the market is: It's already complicated to tackle so many topics – especially when you're so small or don't have that many employees. And in particular, all these things are what energy suppliers in Germany or the CPOs want – in technical jargon Charge Point Operators. Those are like BEW or Vattenfall or

also the Meers and Stadtwerks of this world. So very big players like Shell, very large companies where you were essentially in competition as well. Is that understood correctly? Exactly, although one has to say: at that time we were not actually in competition, because this charging solution we had developed had only been implemented by very few providers. So this home charging with a separate meter point is not a very widespread topic even today. The charging solutions in the sense of selling wallboxes and billing electricity at the employer – those became very popular in the years

17, 18, 19, especially. So I would say, at the beginning it was simply clear: if we're very fast, then we have a market opportunity for a while. But it was also clear that you either have to package the offering into a complete solution and then generate value for yourself through smart charging, for example through price-controlled charging, or you have to develop further in a niche. And for us it was already foreseeable at the time: we don't want to go into the area of public charging or HPC charging

for on-the-go charging, but rather we wanted to cover this area of home charging. And in the long term we would have developed that further, much more in terms of electricity supply for the home, smart home services, flexible electricity tariffs for heat pumps, for air conditioning, PV integration – so all these topics that are now very, very current and where you can certainly continue to develop in bundled services. Interesting. And how do you see it now? I don't know if you still follow the market closely and also the company, how it has developed, or within this Meer and Stadtwerk. How has

it developed? To your knowledge, the company and also the market compared to back then, when you started ten years ago. Well, one can say that in the meantime a mature market has emerged with many players and many specialised offerings. You can actually see that well at E-World too, that services can be purchased in increasingly specialised ways. We still supported Stadtwerk in harmonising the German company with the other national companies, so to speak. And the new Meer brand was also introduced at that time

as well. Meer Solutions – so from imobility, which I believe was even the largest national company, Meer eventually emerged, which today is active as a charging solution provider in several countries in Europe. And the question of where my journey is heading is also difficult for me to answer, because I'm naturally doing this from the outside now and the question is really already developing in the direction of: what will the market for charging solutions look like in the coming years? And if you want to speculate about that or have

such an outlook, then I definitely see that with the development into other vehicle fleets, completely new offerings will naturally emerge. Since last year we've simply had electric trucks in the heavy-duty sector. That's a completely new customer group that will demand completely different charging solutions. We're seeing in the area of digitalisation – well, one still has to say that momentum is finally building – in the control of charging devices, control of the grid, control and installation of stationary battery storage and so on. So there are still many opportunities to optimise this digitalisation

of energy management. And I also see that the charging infrastructure sector will probably split between those who have their own network and pure charge card providers. So everyone has to find their niche. One might be for occasional chargers, for private individuals, for companies, for large fleets, small fleets. The most far-reaching analogy I would see is that it could develop similarly to the telecommunications market – when at the beginning there were also many resellers who simply sold phone tariffs, and in the end of course a certain consolidation occurred in the network

and in the offerings to users the B2B and B2C markets will simply split strongly. Exciting. And you were also very early in the field of energy management. This vision you described at the beginning, where you then started EE Mobility – I assume EE stands for renewable energies as well. It stood for Easy Electrics. Oh I see, okay, interesting. Maybe I can also briefly explain that. We absolutely wanted to start a company and had no

name and thought, of course it has to be a name for which there's also a domain available and so on. And at one point we then made a cut and said, we'll just do e-mobility with two Es and call it Easy Electric, or simply electric. And with that the naming process was complete. You see, various other acronyms and words could come from that. Exactly. And how do you also see the topic? The energy world is heavily regulated and things don't happen as

quickly as one hopes. So before 2014 this idea had started. And we still see that bidirectionality is difficult to implement. How do you view this topic? If I express it positively, I would say the feasibility is technically there. And this trend will not be stopped. It applies to bidirectional charging just as it does to smart meters or intelligent metering systems. These energy-economic hurdles, or let's say uncertainties, will resolve themselves, unfortunately not as quickly as expected. But the pressure on the electricity grid

is increasing from every perspective – usage rates, utilisation, administration, costs. Digitalisation is, I think, a path that will solve very many issues at once. So that's why: sure, you can say that in 2014 we had bidirectional charging and quarter-hour tariffs on the agenda, and now at E-World it's still a current topic that isn't completely mainstream or hardly worth mentioning in practice. But I'd say I'm hopeful we'll solve that. You have to

remain optimistic about certain topics. And you mentioned trucks as an exciting new topic, and battery storage. Perhaps you can add what challenges are involved with these novel fleets, or with even more energy management topics that are emerging, compared to your car and bus fleet experience. What would you say? What are the different challenges? I think you can first derive it from today's long-haul trucking: the vessels, so to speak the vehicles, are much larger. Battery capacities are five to ten times those of cars. Mileages are

five to seven times that of an average car. The requirements are completely different because we have commercial traffic, scheduled traffic, economically much more plannable traffic – which conversely also means it's calculated completely differently. So here costs are simply transparent and clearly calculated. That means the opportunity calculation of combustion versus electric can also be determined quite precisely. In other words, in the truck sector we know the break-even point and know where the journey will go. And as far as charging is concerned – for example charging parks for on-the-road charging –

that naturally also has to fit a truck driver setup. Driver rest periods will be taken into account, in the sense that someone wants to eat, shower, sleep or take care of something else. That's a completely different setup from my family going on holiday wanting to eat and for example wishing for a playground. But I think with charging parks anyway, we have to build a service offering around the charging station so that the charging process is attractive and so that the charging prices

or charging offers can be monetised there. Makes sense. And on the topic of grid connection capacities – do you also see challenges there, where we can't build enough charging parks for trucks because these are quite large capacities coming our way? With buses there were also large capacities in depots, but perhaps the circumstances are different. Do you think that will be something that leads us into problems, or how do you look at it? The grid connection topic is currently much debated, and in general grid connection is at the moment a

scarce commodity. That's also connected with grid expansion, but conversely it's also connected to the fact that in terms of digitalisation we can do little grid optimisation on that side. The good point is that battery storage has become very affordable. We can smooth out part of these demand and supply curves, which don't align, through battery storage or load shifting. But of course it will be the case that if truck traffic – electric truck traffic – develops as currently believed, enormous capacities will have to be available at truck charging sites. And

there I think there will have to be solutions that go in the direction of, for example, controlled overnight charging, that it's evenly distributed, that it's managed charging, that integration with local production is done well – with wind, with PV – that battery storage gets us further, or that incentives are created and you say: a truck is on the road that could charge here or five kilometres further on, in half an hour or in ten minutes, and you make that price-driven,

incentivise it and say: if you have to charge here now but the grid connection here is tight, then charging simply costs more than at the other location where the sun is currently shining, the battery storage is full and someone wants to supply energy. So this dynamisation will come. And the good thing is that we're in an area here that is being developed now and that will happen digitally and connected from the outset. With that we can, I believe, already alleviate quite a lot of grid bottlenecks in this way. Good. And now

we come briefly to the present and outlook. What's currently driving you after this e-mobility experience? I've also seen that you're now at Green Code and you also still have your own firm with which you consult, I believe. Can you perhaps say what drives you these days, how you spend your time and what's still planned, so to speak in the pipeline? Well, for one thing I'm happy to visit you

to see your ideas and your company again and again and to see how you're progressing here. In general the topic of energy management, renewable energies and electromobility continues to interest me very much. But I'm also of the opinion that all this experience of founding and building a company is such valuable experience that it's actually a shame if you do it once and afterwards can't do anything else with it. So that's why I also have an interest in start-ups at a very early

phase, in the seed phase, or ideas where people have an MVP, a good prototype, and want to commercialise it – to provide support there in business development, strategy, financing, investor outreach and so on. And I notice that there are simply an incredible number of great ideas in the energy sector. And for me, the combination of start-up consulting and professional expertise is a good combination to develop or create something. So I still have that drive to support the building of new business models. And the

energy industry simply offers a lot of scope for that. Makes sense. Yes. What are the topics where you – trucks and energy management, are those your favourite topics right now? Or we also mentioned battery storage. What are the topics you're really specifically interested in? Well, one topic we're currently looking at more closely is: How can I better integrate battery storage into charging solutions, also with local electricity production? Can I do it in such a way that I can reduce the complexity of the grid connection issue? On

the other hand, all these questions of how to bring charging supply and charging demand together. So will there be a marketplace where you can auction charging capacity, where you can book it, where you can reserve it, where perhaps topics play a role such as: I want to charge the car with guaranteed green electricity, with my own electricity that I bring with me, with a PV stake that I have in a PV park. I think this whole matching of charging demand and charging supply – that's an area where you can still develop a lot and which

of course also needs a certain base population, which we now have, in order to achieve efficiency there. And then perhaps to come back to the start-up experience: you exited. What tips do you have specifically for the exit phase, how to achieve a good exit? And what big tips – perhaps the top three tips – would you have for successful founding for the listeners? On the topic of exit, I can first say from my own perspective: when we

founded Immobility, we hardly thought about the exit at all. That was good and bad – there are arguments for both. But actually for a very long time we had the idea: we're founding this company, we're following this idea, and we hope that we can realise it, and we want to do it independently and on our own. So from that experience too: every financing round, even the first small one, is in a way already a step towards an exit. There is actually no transaction structure – almost none – where you're afterwards just as independent as you were before.

That means there's a sort of building conditionality. And so my experience, but also my message to founders is always: when you do a financing round – from that perspective it doesn't matter whether you give away 20, 30 or 51% – because it's the beginning of a journey that will ultimately lead to an exit. And so you just have to be clear about your own motives: do I want to get rich? Do I want to remain independent? Do I want to stay small with a good idea, so to speak? Can I

tolerate that, do I like that? There are also many examples of companies that have a good life even with 45 people and do good things for a long time. Or is it about: I want global footprint, I want to scale, I want prominence, I want to build a big company? These are simply motives that founders should also think about at the beginning – and especially should think about when they're in a financing round: what personal goals do I associate with this financing round? And ultimately, the podcast

is also a lot about fleets and fleet managers who might be in the middle of electrification now or have just started. What are your top pieces of advice, what should be considered for successful fleet electrification, based on your experience? Well, I definitely recommend first of all a certain enthusiasm for the topic – otherwise you approach it with the wrong motivation, I believe. And at the same time, however, I'm completely of the opinion that electrifying a fleet must make economic sense and must fit the use cases and requirements

of the users. I think everyone has a portion of mobility in their fleet that can be electrified. For some it will be small, for others large. Nobody needs to rush anything and say everything must become electric within 12 months or so, because you simply have to be able to match the suitable vehicles, the suitable models, the suitable solution offerings, the suitable driving profiles and so on. And that's why I believe: no fleet manager needs to overdo it. But they should inform themselves in such a way that they can develop a staggered transition in their

mind, because I believe that electric mobility will simply be the predominant form of car mobility. Yes, I agree with you there. And lastly: how can people reach you? And who should contact you? What are you currently looking for, what are your current objectives? Anyone is welcome to contact me on topics concerning founding and strategy development in the field of energy, renewable energy, electric mobility, all vehicle classes, all solution offerings, all services around charging and around energy management. You can reach me on LinkedIn or through you, Claudio, certainly. So

I'm also happy to be a sparring partner. I enjoy discussing new ideas and I think I've become quite practised at recognising a vision in them. So I'm very open to discussing new ideas. Yes. Great. Exciting. Thanks, Klaus. And lovely to have you here. Thank you very much, Claudio. Yes, that was the episode with Klaus. I hope you enjoyed it. I find it fascinating how a founder has successfully built two companies twice. That's unique when you consider the statistic that only 10% of startups actually make it.

It's also incredible to see the diverse backgrounds founders can have. So someone who wasn't an engineer founded a company in the energy sector and e-mobility and is also hugely successful. You can feel that Klaus definitely brings a lot of passion, competence and enthusiasm to his challenges and that he still deals with the topic every day, even though he actually already started more than

founded ten years ago and is now fully engaged again. By the way, I met him some time ago and was inspired by e-mobility. The tip came via Next Kraftwerke from Jochen Schwill and other friends I had there, who gave me the recommendation. And then I was in touch with him. I hope you were able to take something away from it. Feel free to tune in to the next episodes. We have exciting further guests coming up. And if you have any suggestions as to who

we should have as our next guest, get in touch. Yes, it's going to be exciting. Everything on the topic of energy management and electric fleets.

Episode notes

In dieser Folge geht es um Gründen in der Energiebranche – und wie man es gleich zweimal erfolgreich macht! Mein Gast Klaus hat zwei Unternehmen aufgebaut und zeigt, wie Leidenschaft, Kompetenz und Netzwerke entscheidend sind. Besonders spannend: Er kam als Branchenfremder in die Energie- & E-Mobilitätswelt und wurde trotzdem erfolgreich. 💡 Was sind seine Learnings & Tipps für angehende Gründer? Welche Herausforderungen und Chancen sieht er für die Zukunft der Elektrifizierung von Flotten und der Energie-Branche? 📢 Lasst euch inspirieren & erfahrt, was es braucht, um in der neuen Energiewelt durchzustarten!