Image courtesy of Eolian LP and Wärtsila
As the Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) market races toward a projected $150 billion valuation by 2030 (Statista 2025), venture capital firms are increasingly looking beyond hardware to the growing software layer of the energy storage ecosystem. With soft costs now accounting for over 40% of BESS unit expenses, software solutions have become essential for unlocking growth, streamlining operations, and maximizing returns from battery investments (Energize Capital, 2024). With this final article of our three-part series on BESS, we are exploring the software part of the market and why VCs are increasingly interested in funding startups in this area. The second installment on the current solutions and future breakthroughs in BESS is available here (Link) and the first part covering the market dynamics driving the explosive growth of BESS is available here (Link).
The investment thesis for BESS software is compelling for several reasons:
The BESS software landscape spans the entire value chain, with several categories showing particular promise:
These systems monitor and control the charging and discharging of batteries at the cell level, ensuring safety, performance, and longevity. Next-generation BMS solutions are incorporating Artificial Intelligence to adapt to battery degradation patterns in real-time, potentially extending battery life by 20-30% as one area of application.
Energy Management Systems (EMS)
BESS-focused EMS platforms optimize energy flows between batteries, renewable generation, grid connections, and energy consumption. Advanced systems now incorporate weather forecasting, electricity price predictions, and load forecasting to make intelligent decisions about when to charge, discharge, or hold capacity.
Battery Intelligence Software (BIS)
This emerging category provides analytics on battery health, performance optimization, and predictive maintenance. Leaders in this space, like Munich-based TWAICE (which has raised approximately $70 million), are using digital twins and machine learning to provide unprecedented visibility into battery operations.
Dispatch and Revenue Optimization
Perhaps the most financially impactful category, these platforms automatically determine optimal battery operation strategies across multiple potential revenue streams. For utility-scale assets, AI-driven platforms can simultaneously optimize for energy arbitrage, frequency regulation, capacity markets, and grid services—potentially increasing lifetime asset returns by 30-50%.
Europe has become a hotbed for BESS software innovation. Let’s take a look at several promising startups emerging in recent years:
Terra One (Berlin, Germany): Developing and operating grid-scale battery storage projects with an AI-driven trading platform to maximize revenue on energy markets. Their seed round brought in $7.5M from investors including PT1, neosfer, and 468 Capital.
Entrix (Munich, Germany): Building a trading platform for grid-scale BESS using AI to optimize revenue in energy markets, with €7.5M in seed funding from climate-focused VCs including World Fund, Extantia, and Revent.
Powernaut (Ghent, Belgium): Creating an AI-driven orchestration platform to manage decentralized energy assets (home batteries, solar, EV chargers, heat pumps) as virtual power plants, with €2.4M in pre-seed funding led by climate VC Revent.
Capalo AI (Kupio, Finland): Providing an AI-powered optimization platform for energy storage that crunches forecasts and real-time data to automatically dispatch BESS across multiple markets. They've secured €500k in pre-seed funding led by Innovestor Tech Fund.
Scale Energy (Berlin, Germany): Building Europe's largest decentralized industrial BESS network, with a centralized management platform providing peak shaving, grid services, and energy optimization. Their €2M seed round was led by Climentum Capital.
Other companies that we have been following with excitement are Co-Power, Limatica and Pulsetrain.
The BESS software space has already produced notable success stories among others the following are worth keeping in mind:
Fluence Energy: Starting as a joint venture between AES and Siemens in 2018, Fluence grew to a $4.8 billion valuation at its 2021 IPO, partly on the strength of its software offerings, including Fluence Mosaic for AI-powered bidding and Nispera for asset performance management.
Energy Vault: Listed on the New York Stock Exchange, this company's software portfolio includes VaultOS (energy management), Vault-Bidder (dispatch optimization), and Vault-Manager (asset management).
TWAICE: While not yet public, this Munich-based company has received approximately $70 million in funding across multiple rounds, demonstrating strong investor confidence in their battery analytics platform.
The next VC value wave in BESS lies in software orchestration, not new hardware. Several strategies to participate in the market as a VC appear particularly interesting:
Evaluating opportunities is always a mix of art and science but there are several things to watch out particularly in the BESS space:
The BESS software market is still in its early stages, currently focused primarily on deployment and optimization. As the market matures, we'll see more sophisticated solutions emerge for system integration, predictive maintenance, and eventually recycling and second-life applications.
For us at Greencode, BESS software represents a compelling opportunity to participate in the energy transition through capital-efficient business models that deliver measurable value by making energy storage systems smarter, more efficient, and more profitable.
If you are building an exceptional company in the BESS space, have a focus on digital-solutions and are headquartered in Europe, it would be our pleasure to get to know you and your company.
We are here to invest in and support startups making a difference. Get in touch: hello@greencode.vc