Berlin’s ecoworks secures €23M for Germany’s largest serial renovation project
Berlin’s ecoworks has secured €23 million to transform twelve residential buildings in Hagen, North Rhine-Westphalia, into a model for cost-efficient decarbonisation.
This project, the largest cooperative serial renovation in Germany to date, aims to upgrade 192 apartments to the KfW Efficiency House 55 standard, ensuring carbon-neutral operations.
The initiative, led by ecoworks in partnership with Wohnungsverein Hagen, demonstrates the scalability of serial renovation—a process where building components are industrially prefabricated off-site. “This flagship project involving twelve buildings demonstrates the enormous potential of serial renovation for decarbonising the existing building stock,” says Emanuel Heisenberg, founder and CEO of ecoworks. “Our extremely high degree of prefabrication makes an efficient, fast and carbon-neutral transformation of the housing sector scalable.”
The project aligns with a broader trend in Berlin’s tech ecosystem, where companies like Enter and WALLROUND are raising significant funds to digitise and streamline renovation workflows. Enter secured €20 million to scale its end-to-end renovation platform, while WALLROUND raised €4.2 million to modernise construction processes. Elsewhere in Europe, Paris-based ECAIR and Vienna’s Optimuse are also advancing solutions for solar retrofits and AI-driven building engineering, collectively raising over €40 million in 2025–2026.
For Wohnungsverein Hagen, the renovation is a strategic move toward sustainability. “Energy-efficient modernisation is the key to a carbon-neutral building stock,” notes Sebastian Greese, Managing Director of Wohnungsverein Hagen eG. “With serial renovation through ecoworks, we are consistently implementing our sustainability strategy in the Helfe neighbourhood. This future-proofs our portfolio and meaningfully reduces both CO₂ emissions and heating costs for our tenants.”
Founded in 2019, ecoworks specialises in AI-powered planning, digital twins, and industrial prefabrication. The company aims to save one gigaton of CO₂ by 2045, addressing a critical gap in Germany’s housing sector, where 75% of residential buildings require energy upgrades and the current renovation rate stands below one percent annually.
The twelve buildings, constructed in 1966, will undergo a comprehensive retrofit. Industrially prefabricated timber-frame facade modules, re-insulated roofs, and high-performance photovoltaic systems will be installed, reducing the final energy demand by 36%. These measures are expected to save approximately 190 tonnes of CO₂ emissions annually, setting a precedent for future projects.
As Europe’s building stock ages, serial renovation offers a scalable solution to accelerate retrofit rates and meet climate targets. ecoworks’ project in Hagen could serve as a blueprint for achieving Germany’s ambitious climate goals—proving that industrial renovation methods can deliver both environmental and economic benefits.
