Smalt, the talent-supply and labor productivity engine for the energy transition, has raised €8 million in a pre-emptive seed funding round to accelerate its growth in the tech-enabled commercial and residential solar sector, addressing critical labor supply challenges in the European climate tech sector. Since smalt launched its operations in September last year, it has already built 200+ PV systems including large commercial and multi-family buildings. The round was led by noa (formerly A/O) – Europe’s largest built world VC – and joined by existing investors General Catalyst, Owl Ventures, and Heartfelt (formerly APX).
Europe’s energy transition is held back by a fundamental problem: the broken system of talent supply needed to install and service climate tech products. Smalt is tackling this issue with its workforce development and service delivery platform, which increases labor supply and productivity at scale. At the same time, smalt is putting people to work that otherwise barely had the perspective to build a long-term life in Europe, thereby addressing major issues for Europe – including labor shortages, the immigration crisis, and labor productivity within the climate trades.
Smalt customers include over a dozen of Germany’s leading energy, clean-tech installation and OEM companies such as Thermondo, Otovo and Enviria in residential and commercial projects. These customers place installation and servicing orders through smalt’s platform, which provides on-demand installation services to its partners across Germany. Smalt offers subcontracting services as well as full-service solutions including consultation, financing, and installation.
Smalt has also launched its own, accredited academy in Berlin as well as 4 hubs throughout Germany, aiming to scale through a continent-wide network of franchised installation and servicing stores led by experienced leaders from its own workforce, local entrepreneurs, and experienced trades workers.
“Our franchise platform enables the European craft ecosystem to work more efficiently and thus strengthens European sovereignty in the renewable energy sector. The new financing will accelerate our growth in the commercial solar and maintenance segment,” commented Marius Westhoff, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Smalt.
Arjun Jairaj, Investor at noa, said: “The shortage of skilled workers is a key bottleneck in Europe’s energy transition. Smalt offers a holistic approach to tackling this problem by attracting fresh talent into the industry and expediting their entry to the jobsite by blending digital and on-site training, and combining this with a technology platform to ensure repeatable high-quality service delivery.”
“This funding round will accelerate our plans to expand into the commercial PV space, as well as regionally into the south of Germany and beyond. We are super excited to welcome the noa family to the cap table with its deep expertise in the built world, to complement our existing investors from the education and B2B software technology space,” added Khurram Masood, Co-Founder and Managing Director of smalt.
