The founders of HERO Software didn't set out to help small craftsmen in the construction industry. They started to fight the climate crisis. But in doing so, they stumbled upon a way to help the industry as a whole. Now the company has closed a €40 million Series B funding round and has plans to expand across Europe.
“I'm a member of the Green Party and did my PhD in solar power,” co-founder Dr. Michael Kessler told TechCrunch over the phone, “looking at the best ways to reduce carbon emissions through things like solar power.”
“The German building industry produces huge amounts of carbon dioxide. We wanted to accelerate the industry and the energy transition in Germany. It turned out that craftsmen were the bottleneck when it came to installing photovoltaics and heat pumps,” he explained.
Kessler continues: “We started the company to fight climate change by guiding craftspeople through tasks like installing heat pumps and reducing the carbon footprint of the building industry. That was our starting point. Then we realised there was a platform for craftspeople in general.”
So HERO Software, founded in Hanover in 2020 by Kessler and Philip Ryding, set out to make it easier for trade owners and employees to manage not just solar installations, but all kinds of on-site and off-site workflows: plumbing, carpentry, solar installations, electrical services, everything.
The platform currently handles first customer contact, on-site project planning and execution, as well as invoicing and payments, and has 20,000 users across the DACH region.
Companies like Jobber ($183.5M raised) and ServiceTitan ($1.5B raised) are well known as platforms for helping artisans run their own small businesses, but in Europe, the market is growing but still largely untapped: German startup Plancraft recently raised a €12M Series A.
HERO, known as a platform for small and medium-sized enterprises in the German-speaking DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) region, led the funding round led by Eight Roads Ventures, with existing investor Cusp Capital also returning to participate.
“At Eight Roads, we have seen many vertical SaaS success stories, but HERO stands out with its comprehensive product and experienced team. We strongly believe that vertical SaaS will enable entire industries to become more digital and sustainably successful,” Lucille Cornett, partner at Eight Roads Ventures, said in a statement.
HERO is currently planning to expand into Poland, France and the Netherlands. “France is maybe two or three years behind Germany in terms of technology. If you look at other European markets, it's a similar situation. Germany, the Nordics and the UK are the exceptions,” Kessler said.