Lumio: the Desafía Program startup providing integrated services for energy management

15.11.2024 10:00, Rita Longobardi

Meet Alexis Las Heras, CEO of Lumio. The sustainability startup's platform focused on renewable energy solutions, specializing in solar panel installations for homes, businesses, and communities. In December, Alexis and the other eight Desafía Team members will participate in a two-week immersive business program across Zurich, Bern, St Gallen, and Lausanne to establish sustainable growth pathways in Switzerland's innovative ecosystem.

Name: Alexis Las Heras
Location: Madrid, Spain
Nationality: Spanish
Field of expertise: Energy Engineering
Job title: CEO and co-founder
Number of employees: 17
Money raised: EUR 300k


Alexis Las Heras is an expert in electric markets and renewable energies, with over six years of experience in the sector. He studied Energy Engineering in Madrid and completed a master’s degree in renewable energies in Copenhagen. His first internship in the field was at Iberdrola, and later he collaborated with the Danish Energy Agency from Vietnam to develop his master’s thesis. In 2020, he founded Lumio intending to enable his parents to share the surplus energy generated by their home’s solar panels with their two businesses. Now, thanks to Lumio, more than 2,000 users in Spain are already sharing energy.

Can you tell us who your product or solution helps, and how?
My product helps individuals or businesses without access to renewable energy gain it. Thanks to Lumio, individuals or businesses with solar panels can share their surplus energy with other consumers who don’t have solar panels. In this way, we create Virtual Energy Communities without geographic limits, helping all our customers consume 100% renewable energy at market prices and save on their electricity bills.

What market are you addressing and what is the potential of your startup in that market?
We are currently focusing heavily on B2B, as our solution is perfect for this market. We are looking for companies with multiple supply points where they can install solar panels on at least one of them and share the surplus energy with the other supply points where solar panels cannot be installed.

What are your team’s key achievements to date?
So far, we have enabled more than 2,000 users to share energy, helping to reduce the carbon footprint by saving over 4,100 tons of CO2. We were selected as the most sustainable startup at South Summit 2023, recognized in 2021 in Forbes 30 under 30 Spain, and have won numerous awards at entrepreneurship and sustainability events.

What do you expect from Desafìa, and how will it help you achieve your vision?
Desafía will help us explore potential expansions outside of Spain and connect with new funds in Switzerland, as we are currently in a funding round.

Why Switzerland represents a great opportunity for you?
Switzerland represents a significant opportunity for us due to its commitment to sustainability and its advanced energy market, which increasingly embraces renewable energies and innovative solutions for the energy transition. In addition, it has a stable, highly developed economy that encourages investment in clean technologies and provides a favorable environment for the growth of companies like Lumio. Expanding our operations into Switzerland would allow us not only to leverage its solid infrastructure but also to establish strategic partnerships with leading renewable energy funds and companies, thereby driving our goal of creating sustainable energy communities at an international level.