Meet Sven Koehler: The engineer pushing rooftop architecture to the edge

Sven Koehler started his journey back in 2012 with an idea for top tier building technology, combining function, design and energy. In 2013, he decided to fully commit to the founder lifestyle and follow his vision for Anerdgy.

“We always wanted to integrate renewable energy, building functions and good design. We tried a lot and eventually it all came together”

Their Business Model

When asking Sven about how Anerdgy started, he described the past five years as pretty bumpy, always on ups and downs but fortunately with a strong founding team who support his vision and add their own ideas too, to “make it happen”.

As the biggest step is going from having an idea to fully implementing and putting in place the solution — the best support system a founder can have is to maintain a founding team that supports the startup when most needed through the research and development, launch and expansion phases. It’s got to be said though, the founding team is not only crucial for growth but also for attracting the right investment for the right person, which can be a predominant challenge.

“Our solutions are classified as building technology, which is important to clarify because it puts people in the right direction of thinking. It is really important for understanding that our technology is designed and engineered for a better and more sustainable life at work and home with the building as gravity centre.”

When speaking with Sven, it was explained to me that the Anerdgy MRE solution is an incorporated technology for smart buildings and not necessarily just a source for smart energy. The goal is to get support to create more greening and terrace rooftops of both old and new buildings to cities. This means that architect firms and building companies are the start-up’s main target group because they can incorporate Anerdgy’s technology into their work. Greening and terracing of rooftops is usually quite expensive but the Anerdgy MRE solution makes it easier and affordable for the building planners and architects. It is also the team’s duty to educate the building owner into providing healthier and greener spaces for their tenants.

“We have lots of positive feedback, but it takes a while. Our solutions have to be implemented from the beginning of a building project to get through the steps involved, including budgeting. It’s worth it though because in fact, when a building owner implements our technology on their rooftops, the happiness factor from the tenants increase drastically.”

Not just making green rooftops more affordable, Anerdgy is also the only company who combines building functions, design aspects & renewable energy all in one go.

Amsterdam Case Study

During the interview, I asked Sven what it would involve to make Amsterdam an entirely sustainable city using Anerdgy technology. One of the main points was that as Amsterdam is a blend of the old and the new. There are many things to do, as the difference in implementing the technology lies in the various types of buildings and architecture of the already existing buildings.

This veered us towards talking about one of their current projects, Smart Urban Isle, which brings sustainability to open areas of towns and cities. Sven describes that the main challenge involves the correct pre-planning of what you want to actually achieve how you want to achieve it within the building. The plan is given to the architects and planners, showing them an overview of the project and the findings. The finding in this research project was to strengthen the pre-planning phase to establish the potential of the project.

For credibility and an increased interest from their target group, it is important that this planning process and tool are transparent to municipalities. Due to the vast and diverse architecture across urban areas, working with municipalities is very different to working with private building owners or architect firms. Anerdgy are increasing in reputation and scale, however they’re “still a small boat following the big boats in the river”, just like many startups it is vital to use existing networks to tap into the larger circles.

We discussed the strategy of Anerdgy and how Sven aims to use his network within universities that can provide a gateway to municipalities. When educational establishments can say “this is how we would do it because this is how we do it in other projects and it works” and the conversation is opened up by the universities and then followed onto Anerdgy, that has a plan of action to become part of a consortium with universities and local governments.

The Funding Challenge

As a founder, Sven’s biggest challenge, of course, is funding. And after three seed rounds the start-up is looking for its first Series A. The earlier stages are also when it’s about trust and building with the team and the personal relationship with the investors. Anerdgy have been financed by only two people and this has worked for Sven and his team.

“We see each other eye to eye and the meetings are less chaotic because there are only five people on the board to make strategic decisions.”

Anerdgy is open to different solutions for the next round but sees the importance in finding the right investor with interest and understanding in the real estate market. Sven recognises that the perfect match is unlikely to be in his direct network and sees the value in connecting with people who know people, an important aspect he believes Fundsup can definitely help with.

“You speak to one thousand people and there could be no output but when you speak to that one valuable person who knows a friend who just fits the profile you’re looking for, then you’re moving forward.”

Anerdgy tried this through events, but this strategy didn’t work out as a source for efficient matchmaking, as he found himself amongst hundreds of other people looking for the right and relevant person. This is why he believes Fundsup could extend his radius of reaching out to people, by automating the first process of filtering out the irrelevant people. It is not only time saving but also more efficient for a start-up’s time and resources.

Function, design, energy.

Looking at Anerdgy’s branding, I noticed the three main pillars to the startup’s work were function, design and energy. During our chat, Sven was very focussed on the details of every aspect of the technology his team are currently building and this intrigued me to why he arranged his company’s three pillars in this order. I asked him why the team decided to put function before design and design before energy, as their three branding words are organised.

Sven explained that function comes first: Anerdgy’s focus is the building, the formation and some technical installations which are mandatory, so the functionality of Anerdgy’s technology, always comes first. It is important to keep function as a priority because this pr1roves the team’s accountability and shows where they’re putting their funds.

Design comes second, an important aspect for the architects and the building planners, as it gives them a visual solution to integrate, just like an accessory, but to a building. It is important for Anerdgy to work on design, as he explains to me that the aesthetic always rules over functionality, in the eye of the customer. The Anerdgy team believes this is the future of technology, to place function first but to make sure design follows closely behind — so that their solutions are increasingly adopted, eventually becoming a trend.

So, this is where I asked: “Why is the energy part last?” It’s all about balance, the function and design would be left aside if energy came first, because it’s the most obvious third of Anerdgy’s sustainable solutions…

“When we start to speak about energy, we immediately forget about the function and design so it has just turned out that energy comes third because we want to highlight the importance of the other factors which make the rest of our technology possible”.