REPS raises $23.6M Series A to turn road traffic into electricity
What's the deal? REPS, an Austrian startup founded in 2023 by Alfons Huber, has raised $23.6 million to commercialise a system that captures kinetic energy from vehicles driving over road infrastructure and converts it into electricity. The company's patented technology is installed onto existing roads and harvests mechanical energy that would otherwise be lost.
"We will turn roads into a source of green energy and by doing so, we will revolutionise 'energy harvesting' and make an important contribution to our climate and energy crisis," Huber says.
The startup did not disclose its lead investor. Previous backers include German accelerator EWORDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, Spain's Clean Cities ClimAccelerator, and Austria's GreenstartDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
Why now? Energy prices continue to climb amid fossil fuel shortages linked to geopolitical conflict, fuelling demand for diverse renewable sources. REPS' first commercial system has been operating at Hamburger Container Service in the Port of Hamburg since November 2025, giving the startup a live proof of concept to attract capital.
The company targets ports, logistics hubs, highways, and urban infrastructure worldwide. It currently employs 12 people and expects to reach 50 by year's end.
What could go wrong? Energy harvesting from roads is not a new idea — and previous attempts have largely failed. Huber acknowledges as much. "Existing energy harvesting systems have historically failed due to low efficiency, short lifespan, and poor economic viability," he says. REPS claims its mechanical energy converter is 254 times more efficient than the next-best alternative, but that figure has yet to be independently verified at scale.
Scaling road-embedded hardware across different geographies, climates, and regulatory regimes also presents significant engineering and commercial hurdles.
The signal: REPS has moved from accelerator-stage backing — via EWOR, CleanCities ClimAcceleratorDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and Greenstart — to a $23.6 million raise in roughly two years, a steep funding jump for a hardware-heavy cleantech startup still at early growth stage. The round suggests investor appetite for unconventional renewable sources is broadening beyond solar and wind, though the undisclosed lead investor makes it harder to gauge how deep institutional conviction runs in road-based energy harvesting specifically.
Read more: Tech Funding News
