Picus Capital

⚡Big strides for the energy transition in LatAm as Niko Energy announces their 23M USD financing round led by our friends at QED Investors. Niko Energy is building Mexico's first Virtual Power Plant, leveraging solar, batteries, EV chargers, and smart thermostats to create a more efficient and resilient grid for residential homeowners and businesses alike. With the vision to amass tens of MWs of capacity, Niko Energy paves the way for a smarter, much more flexible grid. We at Picus Capital are proud to work with Niko's co-founders Edoardo and Raffaele since day one, and continue supporting them as they push the art of what's possible in the energy sector. Excited to share this journey with QED Investors, 468 Capital, Clocktower Ventures, Bridge Latam, and many other of our close friends & partners across LatAm! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gunBn5Fk

We're excited to announce our partnership with Conifers.ai and the team around Tom Findling, Alon Yotvat & Mark Kurman who just raised USD 25 million in funding from SYN Ventures, Picus Capital, and others. We are proud to be their partner from day 0 on their journey of building the leading AI platform to achieve SOC excellence. Conifers.ai as a native AI platform helps organizations solve critical security operations center (SOC) challenges at scale, increasing effectiveness and efficiency, reducing risk, and increasing proactiveness. It brings the power of agentic AI as a force multiplier to SecOps teams. Conifers enables customers to use AI to rapidly investigate complex, multi-tier security incidents at scale, with confidence and trust, and with the tools and portals they already use. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/d3tuvg42

We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with Maki People as they close their €26 million Series A round, pre-empted by Blossom Capital, with participation from DST Global, Frst, and Global Founders Capital. Maki People is revolutionizing HR with its AI-driven talent acquisition platform, helping organizations automate screening, interviewing, and scheduling, while enabling HR teams to focus on strategic priorities. With top-decile growth, increasing international footprint and major client wins such as H&M, PwC, and FIFA, Maki People is well-positioned to accelerate its product development and continue to expand globally. The funding will help scale their AI capabilities and support their U.S. expansion. Congrats to Maxime, Paul, Benjamin, and the entire team on this massive milestone— we are excited to be part of your journey since the very early days! Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dX988bSW

From Fragility to Flexibility: What is the most promising path to a resilient U.S. Energy Grid? ⚡ Our latest article explores the root causes and symptoms of grid instability in the U.S. and dives into the groundbreaking potential of Energy Demand Flexibility enabled by the aggregation and smart steering of flexible behind-the-meter assets such as batteries, EVs or heating/cooling systems. ✍️ Read the full article on Medium: https://lnkd.in/eV_mJJaD Building or working in the Energy space? Reach out to Picus' Lukas Rehm and Philipp Emig to continue the conversation. Let’s build a smarter, cleaner energy future. 💡

As the year comes to a close, we’re hitting pause to look back on the achievements that defined our journey in 2024. This year, we expanded our portfolio with 18 new investments, and 32 follow-on investments. We announced the launch of our second growth fund and welcomed a fresh group of student venture partners to strengthen our university presence. To our founders, partners, and team: you’re the soundtrack to our success. Thank you for another year of incredible collaboration, resilience, and innovation. Here’s to setting the stage for 2025—bigger, bolder, and louder! 

Just like startups who disrupt incumbents, the venture model is also prone to disruption in itself. The VC of 2035 cannot continue to operate like the VC of 2025. Our colleagues Abhijay Thacker and Claudius Seitz had a great chat with Isabella Garcia Foster and the Specter team, where they discussed the future of tech-enabled and data driven VCs - link to the full conversation in the comments below.

2024 was a defining year for AI, marked by over $80B in total fundraising, groundbreaking releases like NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPUs and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and the rapid rise of application-focused companies, particularly in search and Voice AI. Infrastructure scaled significantly, while the competition in foundational models stabilized, and enterprise application-layer AI software spend surged 8x compared to 2023, signaling a shift from experimentation to real-world impact, as highlighted by our colleagues Alexander Kremer and Claudius Seitz in their 2024 review and 2025 outlook. Looking ahead, the focus will turn to energy-efficient and cost-effective infrastructure, alongside AI governance, compliance, and customized AI workflows that deliver tangible returns. As enterprises grapple with the complexity of AI integration, start-ups offering tailored, industry-specific AI solutions are poised to lead the next wave of growth. At Picus, we believe 2025 will be the year AI moves from "potential" to AI with "real" ROI, unlocking even deeper use cases and driving significant business impact. If you're building in this space, we’re excited to partner with you in the year ahead! Read the detailed 2024 review and 2025 outlook here: https://lnkd.in/gYc87hqw Thanks for contributing to this piece: Andrew Antos, Ce Gao & Dr. Niklas Panten.

2024 was a defining year for AI, marked by over $80B in total fundraising, groundbreaking releases like NVIDIA’s Blackwell GPUs and OpenAI’s GPT-4o, and the rapid rise of application-focused companies, particularly in search and Voice AI. Infrastructure scaled significantly, while the competition in foundational models stabilized, and enterprise application-layer AI software spend surged 8x compared to 2023, signaling a shift from experimentation to real-world impact, as highlighted by our colleagues Alexander Kremer and Claudius Seitz in their 2024 review and 2025 outlook. Looking ahead, the focus will turn to energy-efficient and cost-effective infrastructure, alongside AI governance, compliance, and customized AI workflows that deliver tangible returns. As enterprises grapple with the complexity of AI integration, start-ups offering tailored, industry-specific AI solutions are poised to lead the next wave of growth. At Picus, we believe 2025 will be the year AI moves from "potential" to AI with "real" ROI, unlocking even deeper use cases and driving significant business impact. If you're building in this space, we’re excited to partner with you in the year ahead! Read the detailed 2024 review and 2025 outlook here: https://lnkd.in/gYc87hqw Thanks for contributing to this piece: Andrew Antos, Ce Gao & Dr. Niklas Panten.

We’re thrilled to continue the partnership with our portfolio company Cove, as they successfully secure $4.5M in fresh funding from existing investors, including Eurazeo and Keppel Ltd.. This new funding comes as Cove continues to focus on operational excellence, having already achieved EBITDA profitability in Singapore, Indonesia, and at the Group level. With this new funding, Cove is set to accelerate its expansion across the Asia Pacific region. The company now manages 6,000+ rooms across 4 countries - Singapore, Indonesia, and its newly established presence in South Korea and Japan. To support this next phase of growth, Cove has appointed Ashish Manchharam as a Board Advisor. As the founder and CEO of 8M Real Estate, Ashish brings extensive expertise in property investment and hospitality, particularly with Singapore's iconic conservation shophouses. Congratulations to Guillaume Castagne, Luca Bregoli and the entire Cove team! We’re proud to support Cove on this exciting journey and look forward to seeing them continue to break new ground in the co-living space. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/gMqC38ig

We’re proud to continue our partnership with SpotmyEnergy as they close their €10.5 million Seed funding round, led by Norrsken VC, with participation from Vorwerk Ventures. SpotmyEnergy is redefining energy management for private households through its all-in-one solution, combining smart meters, dynamic energy management systems, and innovative electricity tariffs. By helping households reduce energy costs and unlock the full potential of technologies like home batteries, EVs, and rooftop solar, SpotmyEnergy is driving the energy transition forward. This funding will enable the team to scale their technology, expand their operations, and accelerate the smart meter rollout in Germany. We’ve been impressed with the team’s vision and execution since leading their pre-seed round earlier this year and are excited to see their continued growth. Congratulations to Jochen and the entire SpotmyEnergy team on this next big step—we’re thrilled to be part of your journey! And welcome on board to our fellow co-investors Norrsken VC (Fabian Erici) and Vorwerk Ventures Venturs (Dr. Dominik Steinkuehler & Peter Schmetz) Read more here: https://lnkd.in/eZpsBKRB