Fraunhofer spinout retoflow lands seven-figure round from Hesse's BM H
What's the deal? retoflowDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, a Fraunhofer spinout building software for energy grid planning, has raised an early-stage seven-figure sum from BM H Beteiligungs-Managementgesellschaft Hessen, which invested through HessenFonds Beteiligungen. The deal was announced in September 2026.
What's the endgame? The deeptech startup merges scattered grid data into a computable digital twin. This lets utilities simulate future scenarios, spot bottlenecks early, and plan the expansion of their power, gas, and heating networks.
Why now? Decarbonisation is reshaping energy infrastructure: power grids must expand sharply, heating networks are being rebuilt, and gas networks face phase-out. These parallel shifts demand cross-sector planning, but the data usually sits in different systems and formats.
retoflow's technology grew out of research at the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology (IEE)Dealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and the University of KasselDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →. Founders Leon Thurner, Jannis Kupka, and Simon Drauz-Mauel helped develop the open-source standards pandapower and pandapipes, then turned that work into commercial software.
Why it matters: The company says it has been profitable for several years and is now winning its first international customers. The financing is meant to continue that growth and open the technology to new customer groups.
"Grid planning can no longer be a static process given the speed of the energy transition," said Thurner, co-founder and managing director (translated from German). "With this financing we can continue our growth trajectory and make our technology available to further customer groups."
Christoph Wolf, investment manager at BM H, called distribution grids "the operational backbone of the energy transition," pointing to rising demand for tools that help operators make faster, better-founded expansion decisions.
The signal: The round reflects growing investor appetite for software that underpins the energy transition. As grids strain under electrification, planning tools built on established open-source foundations offer a practical route to market — especially for small and mid-sized utilities juggling multiple networks.
Read more: vc-magazin.de
Image credit: retoflow
