Furo's founders left Silicon Valley — and it's paying off

U.S. venture capitalists once insisted that international startups move stateside before they would write a check. The three 28-year-old founders behind Furo are convinced that their decision to leave Silicon Valley and move back to their home country of Germany has paid off in both VC dollars and business growth.

The startup, which develops software for industrial battery storage systems, has secured $4 million in funding from mostly U.S. backers. Just a year after its founding, Furo has locked in enterprise clients such as German rail company Deutsche Bahn. “We’re currently moving faster in Europe than if we’d have stayed in the U.S.,” Furo co-founder Lena Sophia Voß said.

On paper, Furo is a Delaware C Corp that raised a funding round led by U.S.-based TQ Ventures, with participation from Neo and Sheryl Sandberg’s fund, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners. Its journey also reflects a pattern venture firm a16z recently pointed to: startups can now benefit from keeping one foot in their home country and one foot in Silicon Valley.

Furo’s bridge to Silicon Valley was Munich’s Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM), which also took part in its round. It was through this program, tied to the founders’ alma mater, TU Munich, that Voß and her co-founders, Leonie Wagner and Simon Wittner, made it to the Bay Area, where they studied at Stanford and UC Berkeley.

When they decided to start Furo with the goal of helping industrial companies cut electricity costs, they determined the problem was more pressing in Europe — especially in Germany, which went from one energy crisis to another over the last five years, Voß said. Furo could have addressed the market from the U.S. and briefly did, under its former name, Lumera Energy, while in Neo’s accelerator, but Voß said being far from Germany made the work harder, since an early-stage company depends heavily on its network and on staying close to customers.

Amid concerns over immigration restrictions affecting tech employees, Voß said the move was deliberate, not necessary: all three had full-time offers from their previous employers — Apple, Google X, and AI startups — and could have stayed in the U.S. on visas. Munich has been “highly beneficial” for growth, she said, citing network referrals to early customers, mentorship, and proximity to technical universities for hiring, plus engineering salaries that are considerably cheaper than in the U.S. even at the top of the local range, with talent quality on par and less competition from Big Tech.

The startup still keeps up its U.S. network: Voß said the team returns three or four times a year for administrative matters and to meet investors — a reminder that even founders who are happy at home may still need Silicon Valley for fundraising.

Why it matters

Furo’s raise adds to evidence that the old rule — relocate to the U.S. or don’t get funded — is loosening for founders who can pair a genuine local advantage, like Germany’s energy-cost pressure, with periodic Silicon Valley visits for capital and investor relationships.