Philipp Schröder and three colleagues founded 1Komma5° around three years ago. The Hamburg-based cleantech company for CO2-neutral power generation, heat and mobility, where he is CEO, is now probably one of the most exciting startups in Germany. Since its launch, 340 million euros in equity has been raised from numerous investors, including the US pension fund Hamilton Lane, G2 Venture Partners, Porsche Ventures, the Haniel and Schürfeld family offices, and Jan Klatten.

Since 2023, 1Komma5° has had unicorn status with a valuation of 1 billion euros. The company focuses on the „western hemisphere“ and is currently active in six European countries plus Australia. Last autumn it signed its first debt financing, with a 52.5 million euro loan from BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and LBBW, for further growth and acquisitions. The company is aiming for an eventual IPO, though with no specific timeframe.

Schröder, 40 years old and father of two daughters, speaks of „coincidence or fate“ that he has been involved with energy for almost half his life. During an appearance at the Hamburg Business Journalists' Club, he referred to his origins in Wendland, the region in north-eastern Lower Saxony that became a centre of the anti-nuclear movement in the 1970s. As the son of a former investment banker and a former doctor, he grew up on a Demeter organic farm. Schröder gave up studying law and business administration before studying for a degree in Renewable Energy Management at the University of St. Gallen from 2012 to 2014.

During this time, Schröder already worked for the battery storage manufacturer Sonnen, to which he returned in autumn 2015 after a two-year stint as Country Manager at Tesla in Germany and Austria. Among other things, he was responsible for setting up the charging infrastructure for the US electric car pioneer.

According to the 1Komma5° boss, who has switched allegiance from the Greens to the CDU, he learnt from Tesla that you have to master the vertical value chain if you want to change it sustainably. The startup, in which the founders together hold a 40% stake, focuses on electrician businesses that are bought up, and install solar systems and electricity storage, heat pumps and charging points in private households, and for commercial customers.

The electrician trade business of the start-up, which currently employs 2,200 people at 75 locations, accounts for the majority of revenue, which will more than double to 460 million euros in 2023. Added to this is the business with the „Heartbeat“ software platform for networking photovoltaics, heat pumps and electric charging, which has recently become available to more than just the company's own hardware customers.

The company, which posts an operating profit, sees considerable growth potential in the software and licence business. By 2024, the number of energy systems installed at customers' premises that are linked to the software and networked with the electricity market in a separate balancing group is set to quadruple to around 40,000. 1Komma5° is thinking big with regard to the sustainable and cheaper alternative to fossil fuels. The start-up wants to be able to process more than 500,000 customers per year by 2030. Then, according to Schröder, an annual turnover of 10 to 20 billion euros would be possible.