GoKawiilFuro raises $4M after relocating from Silicon Valley back to Germany
Furo, a startup building software for industrial battery storage systems, has raised $4 million from mostly U.S. investors including TQ Ventures, Neo, and Sheryl Sandberg's Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners. The three 28-year-old founders, originally from Germany, moved back home after studying and briefly operating in the Bay Area, and within a year landed enterprise clients like Deutsche Bahn. Co-founder Lena Sophia Voß says the company is scaling faster in Europe than it would have in the U.S.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The case challenges the long-held Silicon Valley expectation that international founders must relocate to the U.S. to access top-tier venture capital. It also reflects a broader shift, echoed by firms like a16z, toward founders keeping ties to both their home markets and Silicon Valley rather than fully uprooting. For Furo specifically, staying close to Germany's energy crisis gave it faster access to the industrial clients its software depends on.
- Furo raised $4M from U.S. investors while based in Germany, not Silicon Valley.
- The startup landed Deutsche Bahn as a client within a year of founding.
- Its path reflects a growing VC acceptance of founders keeping ties to both home countries and the U.S.
EcoFlow DELTA 2 Portable Power Station — Furo builds software for industrial battery storage, and the EcoFlow DELTA 2 brings that same store-now-use-later idea home. It's a LiFePO4 power station that can run fridges, laptops, and tools during an outage, and pairs with solar panels for off-grid top-ups. A practical way to experience the battery storage revolution the article is about.
See EcoFlow DELTA 2 Portable Power Station on Amazon → Affiliate link — we may earn a commission on purchases, at no extra cost to you. Product picked by AI based on this article; it is not a tested recommendation.Source: techcrunch.com — Anna Heim, 2026-09-10
Published there as: “Furo’s founders left Silicon Valley — and it’s paying off”
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