Problem

Autarc addresses the bottleneck slowing the transition from fossil-fuel heating to heat pumps: HVAC installers face overwhelming demand but often lack the specialist skills, standardized processes, and digital tools needed to qualify, design, quote, and deliver projects efficiently. The pain is operational and economic: manual site surveys, heating-load calculations, hydraulic balancing, documentation, and customer administration consume scarce engineering capacity, while time spent on leads that do not convert further erodes margins. The killer use case is turning a prospective residential heat-pump project into a technically sound, compliant quote without requiring many hours of office work or repeated site visits.

Product / Service

Autarc is a cloud SaaS operating system for energy installers, combining office operations, system design, and field work in one platform. Its LiDAR-enabled mobile workflow captures building geometry, rooms, and heating surfaces; AI-supported calculations then feed heat-load calculations, hydraulic balancing, heat-pump design, documentation, quotes, and customer communications. The platform also extends into photovoltaic design, funding and grid-registration support, customer portals, and a field app for construction records and acceptance protocols.

The value proposition is faster throughput and more usable installer capacity rather than merely better engineering software. Autarc says its customers save roughly 10–12 hours during planning, while earlier company materials reported savings of up to 20 hours per installation and an 80% reduction in time wasted on non-converting leads. The business model is a subscription paid by installers.

Market

Autarc competes in vertical software for HVAC, heat-pump, photovoltaic, and broader energy-system installers: part design and calculation tool, part CRM and project-management system, and part field-service platform. Its direct or near-direct alternatives include Dendrit STUDIO, Hottgenroth’s WP Planner, and ZVPlan, which provide heat-pump planning, CAD, calculation, or building-recording functions. Manufacturer tools from Vaillant, Stiebel Eltron, and Bosch compete for narrower design tasks, while horizontal field-service products such as FieldPulse, BuildOps, ServiceTitan, and Jobber are adjacent alternatives for managing office and field operations.

This is not a pre-revenue company. Autarc was founded in Berlin in 2023, entered Y Combinator, and reports seven-digit ARR in Germany; its current company site says more than 2,000 European businesses use the software, while a 2024 trade-publication profile said the platform had been used across more than 30,000 German single-family homes. It sells by subscription and raised a single-digit-million pre-seed round from PT1 PropTech1 Ventures, better ventures, and prominent angels, giving it early commercial traction in a large but execution-constrained heat-pump and home-energy market.