Financing for energy retrofits

Your building already qualifies for financing it has never used.

The State already covers 50% of the credit risk on loans like this. There are active subsidy programmes your building may qualify for. What's missing isn't money — it's someone who turns your building's specific situation into a clear proposal the community can actually vote on.

Talk to us See how it works

Energy performance certificate

Calle de Marcelo Usera 51 · Usera, Madrid · 1972 · 24 homes
Before
E
After
—
Monthly saving
+€115
The problem

The bottleneck isn't the money. It's that no one structures the case.

In Spain, most apartment buildings are owned collectively: a group of neighbours — a comunidad de propietarios — must agree together before any building-wide work can begin.

Most of this housing stock was built before 1980, uses far more energy than it needs to, and is increasingly hard to live in during extreme summer heat.

There is public money available — European, national, municipal subsidies — and even a government-backed loan guarantee already designed for exactly this kind of work. Even so, it barely gets used.

70%of Spanish housing is managed as a comunidad de propietarios, not individually1
50%of the credit risk on energy-retrofit loans is already covered by the State — an existing guarantee line, not something we're proposing to create2

1 Multi-unit homes under horizontal property; Spain leads the EU in flat-dwelling (~65%, Eurostat/INE). 2 MIVAU–ICO guarantee line, in force: 50% State guarantee, free, for buildings with a granted subsidy (ICO/MIVAU).

How it works

Five steps, one community vote.

1 architect · 3 quotes · 1 assembly. The agent prepares what the architect validates, packages what the community votes on, and files what's agreed — without asking any bank to take on new risk.

1Data
2Architect
3Quotes
4Vote
5Documents
1
AI AGENT

Data and draft package

  • The address auto-fills the profile via Cadastre
  • Mandatory ITE repairs are detected
  • Draft package: subsidies, financing and vote thresholds
Profile + subsidies, automatically
app.retrofin.es · demo
Step 1 of 5
AddressC/ Marcelo Usera 51, Madrid
Year · homes1972 · 24
EPCE
Plan Rehabilita ✓Plan Estatal ✓ITE: 2 repairs
Draft package generated
Illustrative — how it looks in the product
2
HUMAN EXPERT

The architect validates on site

  • Joins as the project manager
  • Validates and adapts the package in the building itself
  • Produces the IEE, energy certificate and permit
The expert validates first
app.retrofin.es · demo
Step 2 of 5
✓ Envelope validated on site
✓ Measurements adjusted
✓ IEE issued
○ Permit — in progress
Architect · project manager
Illustrative — how it looks in the product
3
AI-ASSISTED

Quotes, selection and negotiation

  • The validated project goes to 3 builders from the start
  • A like-for-like comparison, assisted by RetroFin
  • Helps choose one and negotiate terms
3 comparable quotes
app.retrofin.es · demo
Step 3 of 5
B1B2B3
Price€102k€99.4k€108k
Timeline6 mo5 mo5 mo
Warranty2 y3 y2 y
Like-for-like comparison · B2 recommended
Illustrative — how it looks in the product
4
AI + COMMUNITY

Presented to the assembly and voted

  • Cost per household, savings and payback, to the assembly
  • One vote: works, builder and loan
  • The assembly picks the renewables route (self-consumption or CER)
One vote covers everything
app.retrofin.es · demo
Step 4 of 5
On the ballotWorks + builder + loan
Yes · 78%No · 22%
Threshold reached ✓ · minutes generated
Illustrative — how it looks in the product
5
AI AGENT

Documents, applications and handover

  • All documentation uploaded once
  • AI drafts each application per recipient
  • Minutes + subsidy pack as PDF; the architect supervises works
Upload once, share selectively
app.retrofin.es · demo
Step 5 of 5
✓ Assembly minutes.pdf
✓ Plan Rehabilita application.pdf
✓ Bank dossier.pdf
○ CAE application — after verification
Each recipient gets only their part
Illustrative — how it looks in the product

Voting threshold depends on the type of work: simple majority for envelope/insulation work and mandatory inspections (with ≥30% public financing, pending legal confirmation); 1/3 majority for renewables and heat pumps, in force under RDL 7/2026.

The numbers

A real case, not a generic projection.

A 24-home building in Usera, Madrid — built 1972, energy rating E.

Total cost of the retrofit€99,400
Covered by subsidies€58,400
Resulting community loan€31,800
While the works are underway
Monthly instalment per householdyour share of the community loan, paid through the regular community fee−€85/mo
Once the works are complete
Estimated energy savingsestimated drop in your household's energy bills after the retrofit+€200/mo
Net result per household, once works are completewhat changes in your monthly budget: savings minus instalment+€115/mo
The loan instalment starts once works begin; the energy savings arrive once the retrofit is finished — there's a real construction period between the two (around 4–5 months in a documented case of a comparable 40-unit building). The loan gets even cheaper once verified real savings trigger a rebate through Spain's existing energy-savings certificate system (CAE) — already in place, not a promise. In that same case, the CAE rebate was paid out 6–9 months after works began.
Our inspiration
"Information offices should be in the neighbourhoods, not at the architects' association."

Manuela Navarro, resident of Orcasitas (Usera, Madrid)

RetroFin AI was built with stories like Manuela's in mind. Since 2014, she has led the energy retrofit of her own neighbourhood, Orcasitas, building by building — convincing sceptical neighbours, many of them older residents, that voting yes was worth it.

Assemblies that started with fewer than 10 people grew to over 200. The result: heating bills that dropped from €250 to €58 a month, energy certificates that moved from E to C, and 40 of the neighbourhood's 107 blocks already retrofitted.

−77%
Heating bill
E → C
Energy certificate
40 / 107
Blocks retrofitted
View of the Orcasitas blocks from Pradolongo park, Madrid
Orcasitas seen from Pradolongo park · Photo: Erreka, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Story based on public reporting on the Orcasitas retrofit: eldiario.es, Dec 2022 · El Salto, Jun 2026.

Why now

We didn't invent the guarantee. We made it reachable.

The State already covers 50% of the credit risk on energy-retrofit loans tied to an already-granted public rehabilitation subsidy — up to €30,000 per household, over 15 years, at no cost to the bank or the community. For your community that means something very concrete: this isn't a scheme on paper. At least one bank grants these State-backed loans today — so a community whose subsidy has been approved can apply for one right now.

The communityvotes to retrofit the building
→
RetroFin AIprepares the bank-ready dossier
→
A bank lendsbacked 50% by the StateState guarantee · 50%
→
Works are carried outand energy spend falls
Join us in building RetroFin

If you're one of these seven, we want to talk.

Banks

You wouldn't be financing anything new. The guarantee line already exists and at least one bank already lends on it — what's missing is qualified demand. We bring it: a first pilot of 30 to 50 buildings, each arriving as a standardized, bank-ready dossier for your own risk analysis. An initial conversation is enough to start.

Talk about financing

Guarantors

The State guarantee already covers buildings with a granted subsidy — nothing new is needed there. But some buildings fall outside that perimeter. If you manage guarantee capacity or first-loss coverage, public or private, let's explore how to reach them too.

Explore coverage

Homeowner communities

Do you live in a pre-1980 building that needs works — or chair your community? Tell us your case: we'll return a first diagnosis with the available subsidies and the per-household numbers, no strings attached.

Tell us my case

Property managers (administradores)

You manage the buildings where this happens. We prepare the dossier, the per-household numbers and the assembly script; you keep the relationship with your communities. Let's talk about a pilot with your portfolio.

Propose a building

Architects and building surveyors

We're looking for technicians to join as project managers: validate the package on site and issue the IEE, energy certificate and permit over an already-prepared draft.

Join the technical network

Builders and installers

Validated, comparable projects from the start, with financing already solved — quotes that actually get signed. Join the pilot's builders panel.

Join the panel

Public sector and organisations

If you work at a city council, a retrofit one-stop shop, an energy agency, or an organisation that supports communities — neighbourhood associations, foundations, cooperatives — let's find how to reach more buildings together.

Explore a partnership
Team

A small team, with the three pieces this problem needs.

Financial structuring, urban climate policy, and product engineering — under one roof.

RetroFin was born from a shared frustration: the money to retrofit exists — subsidies, public guarantees, energy savings — yet almost no building manages to use it. We built the first prototype to prove an AI agent could close that gap, and at AI Tinkerers Barcelona 2026 it took third place and won an NVIDIA H100 Incubation Prize.

But the inspiration comes from somewhere closer than the technology. It comes from Manuela Navarro, who from 2014 walked her own neighbourhood — Orcasitas, in Usera — through a real block-by-block retrofit: assemblies that grew from fewer than 10 neighbours to over 200, and bills that dropped by more than half. Our job is to turn what her neighbourhood achieved through years of effort into something any community can start.

3rd place — AI Tinkerers Barcelona 2026
NVIDIA H100 Incubation Prize
AB

Alejandra Baigún

Product & finance

Design of blended-finance instruments (social impact bonds, results-based loans), development-bank engagement. MSc Finance, London Business School.

LinkedIn profile
ACL

Ana Corrêa do Lago

Research & climate policy

Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow specialising in urban climate policy — anchors the project's regulatory grounding.

LinkedIn profile
VC

Victor Chang

Product engineering

iOS and frontend, previously at MercadoPago — real experience building consumer fintech at scale.

LinkedIn profile