Hybird Energy: While the U.S. Struggles to Orchestrate Building Decarbonization, Europe Is Quietly Building an Energy Cloud

By Greennex Frontier

Across the U.S., commercial buildings account for nearly 40% of total energy consumption — and yet, most remain digitally blind to how their energy is used. Energy bills arrive monthly, HVAC systems are programmed with guesswork, and “efficiency” often means replacing lightbulbs, not optimizing real-time behavior.

Even as ESG mandates, peak-demand charges, and carbon pricing accelerate, most property operators and industrial managers still lack the tools to manage electricity, water, and heating systems in a unified way. It’s not a technology gap — it’s a coordination failure.

In Copenhagen, one startup is building a platform to fix that. And it’s not waiting for smart grid upgrades to get started.

Hybird Energy: Turning Real Estate into a Real-Time Energy Asset

Founded in 2023, Hybird Energy has built an integrated hardware–software platform designed to reduce operational energy waste across commercial buildings and light industrial assets. The company’s core product is a smart electrical panel — retrofittable, modular, and powered by an AI-driven cloud platform that acts as the brain of the building.

But Hybird isn’t just a controls upgrade. It’s a reimagining of building infrastructure as a living, responsive system. One that automatically adjusts lighting, heating, cooling, and water systems based on real-time occupancy, usage, and pricing data — and one that can be deployed without replacing existing HVAC or BMS infrastructure.

Early pilots across 15 sites in Denmark have shown energy savings of up to 30%, with little to no operational disruption. Clients range from real estate groups to food production plants — verticals where energy intensity is high, margins are thin, and manual monitoring isn’t scalable.

The value isn’t just optimization — it’s visibility. With granular, real-time data from multiple subsystems, Hybird turns static buildings into dynamic energy assets — capable of participating in demand response, cutting peak usage, and reducing Scope 2 emissions in ways old-school audits never could.

Founders: A Systems Team for a Systemic Problem

Hybird was co-founded by four Danes with a background that blends hardware, design, and entrepreneurship:

• Thomas Skovby

• Morten Primdahl (co-founder and former CTO at Zendesk)

• Søren Holkenfeldt Behrendt Berg

• Johannes Torpe (internationally known designer and creative strategist)

CTO Morten Primdahl brings scale experience from building enterprise SaaS. His thesis: energy optimization shouldn’t be a service — it should be a product.

“Buildings don’t need another dashboard. They need systems that work together — automatically, reliably, and invisibly.”

Their design-first, hardware-native mindset is clear in the product’s form factor: compact, elegant panels that install without construction crews — a deliberate move to avoid the “industrial clutter” typical of facilities tech.

Business Model: Energy Intelligence Delivered as a Subscription

Hybird operates on a hybrid SaaS model. Clients pay for access to the platform, with pricing based on number of monitored zones or buildings. The smart panels are bundled into contracts and installed at minimal upfront cost, with revenue recovered through subscription margins.

Unlike traditional BMS upgrades, Hybird offers a full-stack approach: hardware, analytics, control, and integration — all designed to work together from day one. This alignment allows Hybird to deliver energy savings within months, not years, and drives high retention through direct cost reduction and operational simplicity.

Gross margins are expected to align with SaaS-heavy industrial platforms: 60–70% once deployed, with expansion potential through add-ons like predictive maintenance, tenant-level billing, or grid interactivity.

Valuation and Investor Logic: Infrastructure-Lite, Software-Heavy

In January 2025, Hybird Energy raised €2.4 million in a round co-led by BackingMinds (Sweden) and Transition VC (UK), with participation from 2degrees, Notion Capital’s Pioneer Fund, and notable angels including Jeppe Rindom (founder of Pleo).

While Hybird hasn’t disclosed valuation figures, comparable platforms like Enode, GridPoint, and GridX suggest a valuation range of €10–15 million post-raise — typical for early-stage energy infrastructure SaaS firms with hardware integration and cross-sector use cases.

The investor logic is straightforward: Hybird sits in a capex-light, margin-heavy zone of the built environment, tackling the operational emissions of buildings — an area ESG investors have labeled the “next frontier” of climate impact. And unlike grid-dependent VPPs or utility-facing platforms, Hybird grows by delivering direct value to the asset owner — not waiting for regulation to catch up.

Why the U.S. Should Pay Attention

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act has poured billions into building upgrades, clean heat, and energy efficiency — but most commercial energy management tools remain stuck in the early 2010s.

Hybird offers a new path:

• Faster ROI: No need for major retrofits or permitting.

• Cross-system intelligence: Energy, water, and heat monitored together.

• Simplicity at scale: Designed for property groups, not energy consultants.

For portfolios seeking to meet carbon disclosure requirements, reduce utility costs, or participate in real-time demand response, a Hybird-like system offers low-friction, high-frequency visibility — and could be the bridge between today’s buildings and tomorrow’s flexible grid.

Challenges Ahead: From Pilot to Portfolio

Hybird’s largest obstacle may be the “pilot trap” — the industry’s tendency to test, stall, and retest energy solutions without scaling. Winning the trust of asset managers and showing portfolio-level impact will be critical.

There’s also the challenge of integration. While Hybird minimizes dependencies, real estate is a slow-moving industry, and building operators often lack the bandwidth — or budget — to adopt even modest new technologies unless benefits are immediate and quantifiable.

Finally, as the climate tech sector heats up, Hybird must differentiate itself from legacy building automation systems and new wave IoT players — by proving it doesn’t just monitor usage, but drives actionable, profitable change.

Final Word: Energy as Intelligence, Not Just Consumption

Hybird Energy is betting that the most effective energy savings won’t come from better pipes or greener kilowatts — but from better decisions, made in real time.

By bringing visibility and control to the physical systems we overlook every day, it’s turning energy management from a hidden cost center into a competitive advantage.

In a world where operational emissions and energy volatility are rising in tandem, Hybird isn’t just offering smarter buildings. It’s offering buildings that think.