Berlin-based ClimateTech startup VREY (RE Joule GmbH) has successfully closed a €3.3 million seed funding round. The round is led by Rubio Impact Ventures, with participation from the High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Kopa Ventures. VREY enables property owners to deploy solar in multi-family buildings and supply the generated electricity directly to tenants, without taking on the role or regulatory burden of an energy supplier.
As a certified smart metering operator and billing partner, VREY provides an end-to-end solution tailored to tenant electricity models and “Gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung”, a new regulatory framework. The company currently has a three-digit number of projects across all 16 German federal states, serving private landlords, housing cooperatives, project developers, and large real estate companies. For installations, they work directly with their customers’ preferred installation partners.
Structural Gap in the Energy Transition:
Nearly half of Europeans share their roofs, but these roofs are rarely covered in solar. In Germany alone, there are close to 20 million rental units in multi-family buildings, with fewer than 2% powered by on-site solar. Adoption has historically been complex and economically unattractive. The only legal option for property owners was to act as (and take on the responsibility of) energy suppliers in order to pass solar power on to tenants. In practice, this was a burden most were not willing to take on. A recent change in German regulation removes that requirement for the first time, opening up a new, simpler structure (called “Gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung”).
Smart Tech Fills the Gap:
VREY provides the technology to turn this simpler structure from regulation to reality. The company operates as a certified smart metering operator and handles all billing via its software: measuring each tenant’s share of solar output and invoicing them directly. Property owners do not take on the responsibilities of energy suppliers, and tenants do not need to switch provider.
Julius Pahmeier, Co-Founder and Managing Director of VREY, said: “The majority of property owners want to future-proof their buildings, but until now, practical solutions were missing. With VREY, we make solar in multi-family buildings simple and economically viable for the first time.”
The result is a genuine triple win: property owners earn a return on their solar investments, tenants pay lower electricity bills, and carbon emissions from residential power supply come down. VREY’s platform also supports the integration of batteries, heat pumps, and EV charging, and works with local installation partners for system deployment. VREY positions itself as the EnergyOS for multi-family buildings, a central infrastructure layer for measuring, billing, and managing energy flows.
Funding Fuels the Growth:
The €3.3M round is led by Rubio Impact Ventures, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) and Kopa Ventures. With this investment, VREY plans to expand its team of around 20 employees and further develop its platform. The goal is to strengthen its position as a leading provider of energy solutions for multi-family buildings and unlock additional energy use cases for property owners. The company currently has a three-digit number of projects across all 16 German federal states, serving private landlords, housing cooperatives, project developers, and large real estate companies. For installations, they work directly with their customers’ preferred installation partners.
Helmer Schukken, Partner at Rubio Impact Ventures, said: “Shared roofs have long been one of the impossible-to-go-solar segments in the residential market. VREY has built a rapidly scalable solution in which everybody wins: tenants reduce their energy bills, property owners make more money without the liabilities of an energy supplier and everyone benefits from reduced carbon emissions. What convinced us to lead this round was not just the model, but the speed and clarity with which Julius and Cedric have executed it. We look forward to being part of what comes next.”
Jan Kätker, Investment Manager at HTGF, adds: “Solar for multi-family buildings belongs on every property owner’s roadmap today. The key is a solution that can be implemented without significant effort. The ClimateTech startup, VREY closes this gap and creates the foundation for broad scaling in both existing buildings and new construction. It’s impressive what the team led by Julius Pahmeier and Cedric Jaeger has already built, we look forward to supporting them on the next steps.”
Marius Weckel, Principal at Kopa Ventures, commented: “The introduction of GGV (gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung) marks a meaningful regulatory breakthrough in Germany, creating a new market environment that requires both expertise and execution. This is where the Vrey team stands out, combining deep expertise, pragmatism, and speed to navigate and shape this landscape. With our experience from multiple real estate investments, we see strong demand for solutions like Vrey and look forward to supporting the team as they scale.”
