Furo’s founders left Silicon Valley — and it’s paying off
- ID
- 23346
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 11 Sep 2026, 4:48 AM
- Fetched
- 11 Sep 2026, 5:45 AM
- Provider
- TechCrunch
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/10/furos-founders-left-silicon-valley-and-its-paying-off/
- Source URL
- https://techcrunch.com/feed/
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 11 Sep 2026, 5:47 AM
- Tags
- Audience
- saas_startup_founders
What happened
Furo, a startup building software for industrial battery storage systems, raised $4M from mostly U.S. VCs (TQ Ventures, Neo, Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners) after its three 28-year-old founders moved back to Germany from Silicon Valley. Within a year of founding, they landed enterprise clients like Deutsche Bahn, arguing that proximity to the European energy market mattered more than Bay Area presence for their go-to-market.
Why it matters
For Malaysian or SEA founders who feel pressured to relocate to the U.S. to raise capital, this is a concrete counter-example: Furo structured as a Delaware C Corp to satisfy U.S. investors but operated from their home market where the customer problem was acute. The takeaway is to evaluate whether your customer density and regulatory context are stronger locally than in the Bay Area, and whether a U.S. legal entity plus a local accelerator bridge (Furo used Munich's CDTM) can get you both VC dollars and market proximity.
Discussion angle
When does it make sense to incorporate in Delaware but build and sell from Malaysia or SEA — and which sectors (energy, logistics, payments) have enough local regulatory or market friction that physical proximity beats Bay Area networking?