Bonatrans Group, backed by Jitka Cechlová Komárková—the second richest Czech woman according to Forbes magazine—and her husband Aleš Cechl, is primarily known for its successful namesake railway wheel manufacturer. Now, the group has decided to invest in a sector where it has not previously been active. The Prague-based energy company Terraverse has secured an investment from Bonatrans in the low tens of millions of crowns in exchange for approximately a one-fifth stake. The company will use the capital for further development and international expansion.

Terraverse develops a platform for the management, trading, and portfolio control of decentralized energy resources (such as photovoltaics, batteries, or cogeneration units). It offers this platform to other companies on a subscription basis. "Our model can only work if the investor comes from outside the energy sector. If a company with interests in energy were to enter our business, it would be impossible for another energy firm to use and trade on our platform. We have therefore been looking for quite some time for someone who identifies with this strategy," explained Daniel Szántai, CEO and one of the three founders of Terraverse. The others are Martin Skácel and Miroslav Oško.

Their professional history is linked to the development of so-called flexibility aggregators and the Nano Energies group, founded by Petr Rokůsek, which is considered a pioneer of this technology in the Czech Republic. Aggregators connect and remotely manage a number of decentralized resources and devices that have the capacity to balance differences between electricity production and consumption in the grid. It can be said that the Czech Republic is currently experiencing a boom in aggregators. They can partially replace coal-fired power plants, which are expected to close soon and which have historically provided these services.

However, the year before last, Nano Energies split into two parts. The original company moved under Vojtěch Kačena's Second Foundation group. This entity continues to focus primarily on the flexibility aggregation of larger sources, such as cogeneration units. A portion of the company was then taken over by managers Jan Hicl, David Brožík, and Lukáš Beneš, who, under the name Delta Green, aim to enable households to profit from flexibility.

Terraverse is taking a different path. The company's intention is not to manage energy portfolios composed of photovoltaics, batteries, or cogeneration units, nor to trade available capacity directly on short-term markets. As Szántai explains, the firm wants to offer other players a tool through which they can manage resources and trade electricity themselves. "We want to be like XTB for energy portfolios," Szántai says, comparing the Terraverse product to the well-known investment platform. This is precisely why it was crucial for Terraverse that the investor did not originate from the energy sector, thus avoiding a potential competitive position with prospective clients.

Szántai points out that for some providers of energy flexibility, potential profits may not cover the costs of creating their own solution. He cites large-scale cold storage facilities or heat pump owners as examples. A freezer, for instance, could theoretically earn money by freezing "a bit more" during times of electricity overproduction.

“We want to focus on being able to provide energy flexibility from equipment that is not primarily intended for that purpose. A freezer is primarily meant to freeze; a heat pump must ensure that it isn't 18 degrees in the house. This means that flexibility is a secondary, not a primary, product for them. But these devices are already here; they just need a robust software tool to manage the secondary processes,” says Szántai, outlining Terraverse's strategy.

Currently, the Terraverse platform is used by clients managing approximately 100 megawatts of capacity, primarily heating companies and cogeneration units. Founded in 2023, the company achieved revenues of 18.2 million CZK last year and reported a loss of 1.6 million CZK, which is common for start-ups of this nature.

Terraverse plans to use the funds from the Bonatrans group to complete the platform for the domestic market and, next year, for international expansion into the Slovak and Polish markets. "We are already establishing contacts there, and the money should serve to expand the application to foreign markets. Poland and Slovakia have their own systems for trading ancillary services, so it will be necessary to expand the software," adds Szántai.

The Bonatrans Group is among the largest companies in the Czech Republic; the year before last, it achieved revenues of 8.7 billion CZK and a net profit of 824 million CZK, representing a year-on-year increase of 113.5 million CZK. Its core is the railway wheel manufacturing plant in Bohumín. Jitka Cechlová Komárková was long the richest woman in the Czech Republic until she was surpassed by Renáta Kellnerová, the widow of Petr Kellner.

https://archiv.hn.cz/c1-67721530-energeticky-start-up-ziskal-od-druhe-nejbohatsi-cesky-desitky-milionu-vyuzije-je-na-expanzi-do-zahranici