Berlin-based climate technology startup VREY has secured €3.3 million in seed funding to expand its solar energy platform for multi-family residential buildings. The round was led by Rubio Impact Ventures, with participation from High-Tech Gründerfonds and Kopa Ventures, backing the company’s effort to make rooftop solar easier to deploy in shared housing. The financing positions VREY to address a large but underdeveloped segment of the energy transition: apartment buildings where tenants and property owners have historically faced regulatory and operational barriers to using locally generated solar power.
Unlocking Shared-Roof Solar
VREY, legally registered as RE Joule GmbH, was founded in Berlin in 2024 by Cedric Jaeger and Julius Pahmeier. The company enables landlords, housing cooperatives, developers, and real estate companies to install solar systems on multi-family buildings and supply the generated electricity directly to residents. Its model is designed to remove the need for property owners to become energy suppliers, a requirement that previously discouraged many building owners from offering tenant solar power.
Addressing a Structural Market Gap
Multi-family buildings represent one of the biggest untapped opportunities in residential solar, particularly in dense European cities where many people share roofs rather than own them individually. In Germany, close to 20 million rental units are located in multi-family buildings, yet fewer than two percent are powered by on-site solar systems. VREY’s investors argue that this gap is not caused by weak demand, but by complex rules, billing requirements, and the practical difficulty of fairly distributing solar electricity among multiple occupants.
Technology and Regulatory Timing
The company’s platform combines certified smart metering operations, automated billing software, and energy management tools tailored to tenant electricity models and Germany’s newer collective building supply framework, known as Gemeinschaftliche Gebäudeversorgung. Under this structure, VREY measures each tenant’s share of solar generation and manages invoicing directly, while residents can keep their existing electricity provider. The startup also says its platform can support additional building-level energy use cases, including batteries, heat pumps, and electric vehicle charging infrastructure.
Expansion Plans After the Seed Round
VREY plans to use the new capital to grow its team, further develop its platform, and scale its presence across Germany’s residential property market. The company already reports a three-digit number of projects across all 16 German federal states, serving customers that range from private landlords to large real estate companies. LinkedIn posts from investors and ecosystem supporters also point to growing commercial traction, including references to more than 200 residential buildings supplied through VREY’s model.
Investor Confidence
Rubio Impact Ventures described shared-roof solar as one of the residential market’s most difficult segments and said VREY’s approach creates value for property owners, tenants, and emissions reduction. HTGF highlighted the importance of making solar implementation simple enough for both existing buildings and new construction, while Kopa Ventures pointed to Germany’s regulatory shift as a meaningful opening for specialist operators. Together, the investors are backing VREY not only as a solar company, but as an infrastructure and software layer for managing energy flows in multi-family buildings.
VREY’s seed round reflects rising interest in climate solutions that can turn regulatory change into practical deployment at scale. By combining metering, billing, and energy management, the company aims to make solar power viable for property owners while giving tenants access to lower-cost, locally produced electricity. If VREY can convert its early traction into broader adoption, multi-family buildings could become a far more important part of Germany’s distributed renewable energy system.