Europe’s electricity grid is becoming one of the defining infrastructure challenges of the energy transition.
The issue is increasingly visible at regulatory level. Yesterday it was reported that senior European Commission official Christof Lessenich is being put forward to head the EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), the body responsible for coordinating national energy regulators and overseeing Europe’s increasingly interconnected electricity market.
Building transmission infrastructure remains important, but the growing complexity of the system is also creating demand for technology capable of making better use of the grid Europe already has.
Startups are moving into that gap with virtual power plants, AI-powered energy trading, smart metering, battery optimisation and software capable of coordinating thousands of distributed assets.
Not every company below builds technology directly for transmission or distribution system operators – but all are tackling the broader problem of making a more decentralised European power system measurable, flexible and easier to balance.
Here are 10 European Grid-Tech startups to keep an eye on, presented in alphabetical order.
Axle Energy
Founded in London in 2023, Axle Energy is building an energy-flexibility platform that turns distributed assets including EV chargers, home batteries and heat pumps into grid-balancing capacity.
Rather than requiring utilities and equipment manufacturers to develop their own market-access infrastructure, Axle connects assets, forecasts their availability, aggregates them and dispatches their flexibility into electricity markets. The result is effectively a virtual power plant assembled from infrastructure already sitting in homes, fleets and businesses.
The company says it now coordinates more than 300,000 connected assets representing over 2 GW of capacity. In July, Axle Energy raised €21 million in Series A funding to expand in the UK and internationally.
Bohr Energie
Toulouse-based Bohr Energie specialises in aggregating and optimising distributed renewable-energy and flexible assets, including batteries and hybrid generation systems.
Its technology sits between individual energy assets and electricity markets, helping producers and asset owners coordinate generation and storage while responding to changing prices and system requirements. As increasing amounts of solar, wind and storage enter the grid, aggregation platforms such as Bohr are becoming important for turning fragmented capacity into something energy markets can use more efficiently.
Helsinki-based Capalo AI is developing an AI-powered virtual power plant focused particularly on battery energy-storage systems.
Its software combines forecasting with optimisation models to decide when batteries should charge, discharge and participate in electricity markets. By connecting storage and renewable assets across multiple locations into a single virtual portfolio, the platform can respond to grid conditions and market prices in real time.
That makes the technology particularly relevant as renewable penetration creates greater volatility between periods of excess and insufficient generation.
In February, Capalo AI raised €11 million in Series A funding to accelerate the European rollout of its VPP. The company said its contracted battery capacity had already surpassed 1 GW during 2025.
Companion.energy
Founded in 2022 and headquartered in Ghent, Companion.energy is approaching grid flexibility from the enterprise side.
Its platform helps large industrial and commercial organisations manage their energy procurement, consumption and distributed assets in real time. Batteries, solar installations, EV charging infrastructure and electrified industrial systems can all be coordinated rather than managed through separate tools and contracts.
As electricity prices become more volatile, the startup wants energy-management software to move beyond dashboards and recommendations towards automated execution, deciding how assets should operate in response to market conditions.
Companion.energy raised €7.8 million in Seed funding in June to develop its multi-asset optimisation platform and expand across Europe, beginning with Germany and Spain.
Eddy Grid
Utrecht-based Eddy Grid, founded in 2023, develops algorithms that optimise solar, wind and battery assets in real time across electricity markets.
The underlying challenge is becoming increasingly complicated. A single grid connection might now combine generation, consumption and battery storage, while electricity prices and grid constraints can change throughout the day.
Eddy Grid’s software determines how those assets should operate to maximise their economic value, helping asset owners respond dynamically rather than running renewable infrastructure in isolation.
The startup announced €7.5 million in new financing in May after reporting revenue growth of almost 900% during 2025. It also said it had become cash-flow positive.
Einklang
Founded in Cologne in 2025, Einklang is bringing battery-enabled energy flexibility to Germany’s small and medium-sized businesses.
Its Energy-as-a-Service model combines electricity procurement, battery storage, intelligent controls and flexible tariffs. The system can shift when companies draw power from the grid or use stored electricity, helping them avoid expensive demand peaks and consume power when renewable generation and lower prices are available.
That may appear to be primarily a cost-saving proposition, but aggregated demand flexibility is also becoming increasingly valuable to electricity networks attempting to manage congestion and variable generation.
In February, Einklang raised €2.2 million to scale the model, claiming its system can cut electricity costs for some SME customers by 30% to 40%.
Entrix
Munich-based Entrix operates at the intersection of battery storage, electricity trading and grid flexibility.
Founded in 2021, the company optimises large battery-storage assets using AI-driven trading technology that responds to electricity prices, grid requirements and individual portfolio strategies. It also structures longer-term revenue models intended to make battery projects more financeable.
The company had reached 3 GW and 8.5 GWh of contracted battery-storage capacity by March, spanning around 70 assets in several European markets.
Copenhagen-based Hybrid Greentech is developing virtual power plant technology and tools for integrating renewable-energy assets into electricity markets.
Its platform aggregates assets such as batteries and renewable generation so their flexibility can be traded and used to support the wider power system. Instead of treating individual batteries or renewable sites as isolated installations, VPP technology allows them to operate collectively as a dispatchable energy resource.
That capability becomes more valuable as Europe’s generation mix shifts towards intermittent renewables and grid operators need additional ways of keeping supply and demand balanced.
Hybrid Greentech secured more than €15 million in investment in February to accelerate its European expansion and connect with additional energy exchanges.
metiundo
Berlin-based metiundo focuses on one of the less glamorous but fundamental layers of the modern electricity system: measurement.
Founded in 2021, the company combines smart-metering hardware, software and market communication infrastructure to digitise energy and water consumption in buildings. Its system can capture both consumption and generation data across properties rather than treating individual energy systems separately.
That granular information becomes increasingly useful as buildings add solar panels, batteries, heat pumps and other flexible technologies. Before those assets can be intelligently optimised or aggregated, the underlying energy flows need to be reliably measured and connected.
In February, metiundo secured €40 million to accelerate its smart-meter rollout and further develop its software platform.
tem
London-based tem, founded in 2021, is rebuilding another layer of electricity infrastructure: the way energy is bought and sold.
Its AI-native transaction platform is designed to connect businesses and electricity generators more directly while automating processes that have traditionally been handled through utilities, brokers and complex contracts.
Its technology includes Rosso, an AI-powered transaction engine that handles energy contracts end to end, alongside RED, a digital energy supplier built on top of that infrastructure.
Although tem is less directly focused on grid balancing than some companies on this list, electricity-market infrastructure becomes increasingly important as Europe moves from a relatively small number of large generators towards millions of distributed producers, storage systems and flexible consumers.
Europe’s grid challenge is not simply a question of laying more cables.
The power system is moving from predictable generation flowing in one direction towards a network containing renewable generators, batteries, EVs, heat pumps, businesses and households capable of consuming, storing and increasingly selling electricity at different times.
That shift requires physical infrastructure, but it also requires a digital coordination layer.
From Capalo AI and Hybrid Greentech aggregating batteries into virtual power plants, to metiundo digitising energy data and Axle Energy unlocking flexibility from devices already connected to the network, a growing generation of European startups is building that layer.
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Bohr Energie
Bohr Energie
Entrix
