The clean energy conversation is almost always about technology – better panels, cheaper heat pumps, smarter storage. But the hardware has been ready for years. What’s actually stalling the rollout is money: 40% of German households that want to invest in climate technologies can’t afford to pay for them upfront.
Marius Schondelmaier is Joint-CEO and co-founder of Bees & Bears: a Berlin-based green fintech that embeds financing for solar and heat pumps directly at the point of sale. The company was the first climate fintech in Europe to secure a €500m credit facility from a listed bank. And it topped SR2’s Germany Clean Energy 50 report for 2026.
We sat down with Marius to talk about why capital access is the real bottleneck in the energy transition, how you scale a team by 180% without losing the culture, and the kind of talent it takes to build the financial infrastructure behind Europe’s clean energy rollout.
You’ve seen 180% headcount growth in the past 12 months – what’s been the biggest driver behind that acceleration?
We are working on a megatrend that is quickly picking up in Europe, generating massive demand. Globally, 150 trillion USD in private investments will be needed to reach climate neutrality by 2050, with roughly two-thirds financed via debt.
But 40% of German homeowners who want to invest in climate technologies such as heat pumps, solar panels, or energy-efficient renovations can’t afford to pay upfront. They need financing.
Local installation businesses who play a key role in driving the energy transition can’t offer financing because the risk and prepayments are too high. And while banks do have the capital available, they lack systems to efficiently deploy it at scale.
Bees & Bears finally unlocks that dormant capital at scale by building the infrastructure layer connecting banks, installers, and end customers.
We were the first startup to receive a €500m credit facility from a listed European bank, which our embedded finance platform makes directly available to installers. Offering homeowners instalment payments for climate technologies becomes an integrated option at the point of sale.
What used to take weeks at a traditional bank now takes minutes and is completed fully digitally with built-in buyer protection. Installation businesses can thus grow their revenue by up to 40% as a result. Our headcount growth is a direct reflection of that demand.
And we’re not slowing down – we expect to extend our team further while still heavily investing into automation to achieve hypergrowth. Bees & Bears’ north star objective is to deploy €1 trillion in the climate economy, being the financial engine making every climate investment happen for a sustainable future.
Traditionally, clean energy conversations have been very tech-led, but your model puts financing at the centre. Do you see capital access as the current bottleneck in scaling renewables?
The single biggest bottleneck in scaling renewable energy is the access to capital.
Climate technology has long been available, and so has capital. However, banks lack the infrastructure to efficiently manage millions of single investments for homeowners, making financing requests for heat pumps or solar panels bureaucratic, slow, and frustrating.
As a result, most homeowners don’t finish a process, or don’t even start it at all.
Bees & Bears is building the leading middle layer infrastructure between banks, installation businesses and homeowners that enables fast and easy access to capital for investments in renewable energies.
The government support in Germany is simply not helping households who cannot afford to pay €30,000 or more for a heat pump or solar panel in one go.
Your platform enables embedded financing for solar and heat pumps, and a big part of your mission is unlocking access for households. Even with all the government support available in Germany, a lot of households still aren’t making the switch. From your perspective, what’s stopping them?
The government support in Germany is simply not helping households who cannot afford to pay €30,000 or more for a heat pump or solar panel in one go.
The funding comes in as a reimbursement. Thus, you can consider it a reward, but not an incentive.
At Bees & Bears, monthly installments start at €100 per month with a term of up to 25 years. Our product integrates free of charge repayments at any point of time and buyer protection, meaning the first installment payment is due only after the successful installation of the solar panel or heat pump.
This way, Bees & Bears allows households with an average income as well as households with a higher need for financial safety to easily and flexibly invest in climate technologies for their homes.
We invest heavily in hiring – it’s the only way to scale a team without constantly paying the price for bad hires.
The report highlights a shift from speculative growth to commercial maturity in the energy space. How has that changed the way you think about building and scaling your team?
Speculative growth means hiring for speed and experimentation. Commercial maturity means hiring for precision. For us, both apply simultaneously
Our market is moving fast, which requires dynamic hiring. But hiring and firing is expensive and unproductive. Every new team member needs to be onboarded by the existing team, consuming time that’s better spent on executing projects.
That’s why we invest heavily in getting the hiring process right from the start. Every candidate goes through multiple rounds involving HR, the prospective team lead, their future peers, and one of our founders. They work on a case study and we invite them into the office. We also take reference calling seriously.
It takes more time upfront, but it’s the only way to scale a team without constantly paying the price for bad hires.
As a green fintech, you’re sitting between energy, software, and finance. What profiles have been hardest to find when hiring, and where do you see the biggest talent gaps right now?
We are equally critical for every role we hire, regardless of the discipline.
What matters most isn’t the specific background. Every team member at Bees & Bears has to be a true expert in their field and a proactive self-starter who can handle the pressure of a company in a heavy growth phase. We don’t compromise on either.
This environment isn’t for everyone – and we’re very upfront about that in our hiring process. We want people who thrive under pressure and are not intimidated by a multitude of options to be explored.
With your level of growth, how have you approached maintaining culture and alignment while hiring at speed?
At our pace, we’re welcoming new team members at Bees & Bears every week. That means, our culture is one of constant change and we invest heavily to make sure that we excel together.
We bring the team together consistently: monthly team events, regular lunches and dinners, weekly all-hands where we start and close the week together.
But what sets our culture apart goes deeper than that. We run Climate Kitchen events – learning sessions during which we invite researchers to brief the team on climate science, and team members wanting to go to a climate demonstration can get a day off.
The intrinsic motivation to have climate impact is a main connector in our team, and one that drives our performance culture.
We’re automating our processes with AI. We’re expanding across Europe. We’re raising a billion-euro-credit line. And we’ll at least double our headcount again within the next 12 months.
As you look ahead to the next 12–24 months, what are the critical hires or capabilities you need to unlock your next phase of growth?
The next 12 to 24 months will be defined by growth on every front.
We’re fully automating our processes with AI to deliver the fastest and best possible customer experience. We’re expanding across Europe. We’re raising a billion-euro-credit line to significantly amplify our impact on the energy transition. And we’ll at least double our headcount again within the next 12 months.
Along that growth, we need people who are brilliant in their field and who don’t shy away from the massive amount of work that’s still ahead of us.
If you could hire one “unicorn” profile tomorrow – someone who would materially accelerate Bees & Bears – what would that look like?
We don’t believe in the one unicorn hire. We expect every single person we bring to the team to be that unicorn.
People who work with us need to understand that we are working on the one defining task of our generation: the energy transition.
What that means in practice: we need determined fighters and winners. People who are striving for high performance, think in business outcomes, and are genuinely purpose-driven to solve the energy transition.
Bees & Bears is one of 50 organisations featured in SR2’s definitive ranking of Germany’s fastest-growing clean energy companies. 12 months of verified headcount data, the leaders driving the sector forward, and exclusive insights on where the market is heading next.
About SR2 Clean Energy
Across Germany’s clean energy ecosystem, execution is becoming the differentiator. SR2’s Clean Energy team is already working alongside the organisations building, hiring, and scaling in the space – from BESS and renewable generation to the industries enabling them.
