As energy costs surge across Europe, there's no better time to talk about efficiency and independence. Many of my peers have been asking: how do we make home renovations and solar projects more accessible? Frankly, the issue has always been about money, most people struggle to get financing sorted before they give up entirely. ECAIR’s latest €11 million funding round seems to tackle that financing gap head-on, and it’s a topic we’re going to break down today.
Across the continent, rising electricity and gas bills are driving more people to explore options like solar panels, insulation upgrades, and heat pumps. Yet, according to several reports, nearly 50% of these projects stall at the quotation phase simply because the customer can’t get the right financing. These figures make it clear that this isn’t about a lack of demand, it’s a logistical issue, and ECAIR’s platform might have hit the nail on the head.
What exactly is ECAIR doing?
ECAIR focuses on simplifying the financial backend for both installers and homeowners. Think of it as a bridge between the people installing solar panels or renovating homes and the consumers eager to adopt these upgrades but hesitant due to upfront costs. ECAIR equips installers with a financial toolkit that helps them convert customer quotes into projects without hassle. For homeowners, they enable instant loans tied to projected energy savings. The idea is simple: you borrow now but save enough on your monthly bills to cover your repayments.
Their co-founders, Maxime Bensadoun and Victor Jolly, both bring FinTech experience, which is reflected in the platform’s efficiency. Maxime’s work with Revolut and Victor’s background at Lydia signal their deep understanding of consumer finance. That’s crucial because energy efficiency and solar require smart loan products, not just generic offerings.
Five funding insights startup founders can learn from ECAIR's round
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Target a clear pain point: ECAIR aimed directly at the gap in financing options for home renovations and solar projects. Their platform doesn’t just play in the energy sector, it addresses a very specific block to adoption.
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Build for your key users: Their choice to focus on installers first was smart. If installers can offer tailored financing directly, it dramatically reduces friction for the customer. Building tools for the supply chain rather than just the end user can be a game-changer.
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Leverage diverse investors: ECAIR didn’t limit itself to typical backers. Climate-specific funds like Planet A and Enerfip joined forces with crossover funds like Kima Ventures. This kind of mixed backing brings both money and expertise.
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Tie funding to market opportunity and timing: France alone sees €15 billion worth of residential renovation projects annually, while the EU market tops €100 billion. Combine that with steep price increases for gas and electricity, 80% and 120% respectively over a decade, and the timing for accessible financing could not be stronger.
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Have granular metrics prepared: It’s no coincidence that they included stats like the percentage of stalled quotations in their funding pitch. Data-driven storytelling resonates with investors across industries.
How can startups apply similar strategies?
If you’re in energy solutions, or any sector for that matter, you need to think about the facilitator role. How can you build systems or platforms that remove barriers for consumers and professionals? Take the following steps:
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Identify choke points: Where does adoption fail? Is it pricing? Awareness? Getting approvals? Your product needs to hit that exact weakness in the chain.
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Onboard partners early: ECAIR tackled the installers' problem first because they knew this group could streamline their growth. Similarly, think about who stands to gain the most when your tech succeeds, and help them win.
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Localize strategy: Europe's diverse markets (think subsidies, regulations, consumer habits) mean you can't treat them as one. ECAIR’s market specificity, starting with France and expanding later, is a clear example.
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Build around urgency: Spike your growth strategy with timing. Energy costs create urgency, and financing removes fear, the perfect psychological pairing.
Avoid these common mistakes in energy-tech financing
Many startups launch solutions in this space only to face roadblocks like these:
- Skipping the business user: Ignoring key professionals (installers, energy providers) limits your ability to scale.
- Generic financing products: Blanket offerings don’t match the unique cash flow needs of a homeowner or a small-scale installer.
- Miscommunication of ROI: Don’t rely on vague phrases like "reduce your energy bill." Translate savings into numbers and show those numbers in ways people can imagine fitting their monthly budget.
- Underestimating adoption hurdles: Knowing there’s strong interest in solar doesn’t mean you expect 50% of quotes to fizzle out. Anticipating friction is half the battle.
Useful tools to explore financing for energy projects
If you’re thinking about creating similar platforms, here are some resources worth exploring:
- Planet A Climate Fund: Backed startups focused on removing systemic hurdles in climate adoption.
- Enerfip Solar Bonds: A consumer-facing financing tool that ties projects to individual savings.
- French and EU subsidies: Exploring how government grants and incentives can layer into your financing stack.
- Installer automation tools (like OpusFlow): These platforms help tradespeople scale operations, especially when combined with financing solutions.
My conclusion
ECAIR’s strategy isn’t flashy, nor does it aim to reinvent the wheel. Instead, they’re fixing a critical bottleneck, finance accessibility. Their approach tackles the problems head-on while reshaping the decision-making process both for consumers who dread upfront costs and installers who know they can’t close deals without better options. Their funding round validates this simplicity, and €11 million is a solid vote of confidence in execution.
The lesson for entrepreneurs is crystal clear. Find the obstacle that's derailing adoption and solve that, not five other side problems. Whether you’re building tech for solar arrays, IoT for sustainability, or tools for smart homes, simplicity wins. If operational headaches seem bigger than your idea, step back and ask how you can genuinely solve just one big problem for your users.
FAQ
1. What is ECAIR and its main goal?
ECAIR is a French FinTech platform focused on providing accessible financing solutions for solar panels and home renovation projects. Its goal is to ease financial barriers for installers and homeowners through instant loans tied to projected energy savings. Discover ECAIR
2. How much funding did ECAIR secure recently?
ECAIR raised €11 million as part of its latest funding round to expand accessibility to financing solutions for energy-efficient projects. Read about ECAIR’s Funding
3. What problem does ECAIR aim to solve?
ECAIR addresses the issue of stalled energy projects due to financing hurdles. Nearly 50% of solar and home renovation quotations fail because customers cannot access proper financing. Learn more about ECAIR’s mission
4. Who are ECAIR’s co-founders?
ECAIR was co-founded by Maxime Bensadoun, an ex-Revolut Payments expert, and Victor Jolly, former COO at Lydia. Both bring extensive FinTech experience to the company. Discover more about ECAIR’s team
5. What markets does ECAIR currently target?
ECAIR primarily focuses on the residential renovation and solar market in France, valued at approximately €15 billion, with plans for broader European expansion. Explore data on ECAIR’s market
6. Which investors contributed to ECAIR’s funding round?
Investors include Planet A, Enerfip, Kima Ventures, and BPI (French public investment bank), among others. Check ECAIR’s investor list
7. What financing options does ECAIR offer for consumers?
For homeowners, ECAIR enables instant loans tied to projected energy savings, making renovations and solar installations cash-flow positive from the start. Learn about ECAIR’s loan products
8. How does ECAIR support installers?
ECAIR’s platform equips installers with tools to turn customer quotations into completed projects by providing integrated funding solutions. Find out about ECAIR’s installer tools
9. How do energy costs impact the demand for renovations and solar projects?
Rising electricity and gas prices (up 80% and 120% respectively over a decade) have made energy efficiency and self-consumption solutions like solar panels and heat pumps more urgent economic priorities. Understand energy cost trends
10. What lessons can startups learn from ECAIR’s approach?
ECAIR targeted a specific pain point, financing gaps, and focused on building tools for installers to scale consumer adoption. Their data-driven pitch strongly resonated with investors. Learn from ECAIR’s strategy
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp's expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the "gamepreneurship" methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.
About the Publication
Fe/male Switch is an innovative startup platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs through an immersive, game-like experience. Founded in 2020 during the pandemic "without any funding and without any code," this non-profit initiative has evolved into a comprehensive educational tool for aspiring female entrepreneurs.The platform was co-founded by Violetta Shishkina-Bonenkamp, who serves as CEO and one of the lead authors of the Startup News branch.
Mission and Purpose
Fe/male Switch Foundation was created to address the gender gap in the tech and entrepreneurship space. The platform aims to skill-up future female tech leaders and empower them to create resilient and innovative tech startups through what they call "gamepreneurship". By putting players in a virtual startup village where they must survive and thrive, the startup game allows women to test their entrepreneurial abilities without financial risk.
Key Features
The platform offers a unique blend of news, resources,learning, networking, and practical application within a supportive, female-focused environment:
- Skill Lab: Micro-modules covering essential startup skills
- Virtual Startup Building: Create or join startups and tackle real-world challenges
- AI Co-founder (PlayPal): Guides users through the startup process
- SANDBOX: A testing environment for idea validation before launch
- Wellness Integration: Virtual activities to balance work and self-care
- Marketplace: Buy or sell expert sessions and tutorials
Impact and Growth
Since its inception, Fe/male Switch has shown impressive growth:
- 5,000+ female entrepreneurs in the community
- 100+ startup tools built
- 5,000+ pieces of articles and news written
- 1,000 unique business ideas for women created
Partnerships
Fe/male Switch has formed strategic partnerships to enhance its offerings. In January 2022, it teamed up with global website builder Tilda to provide free access to website building tools and mentorship services for Fe/male Switch participants.
Recognition
Fe/male Switch has received media attention for its innovative approach to closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. The platform has been featured in various publications highlighting its unique "play to learn and earn" model.