Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures Invest $8M in Varentec to Transform the Power Grid
Varentec has closed $8 million in Series B funding from Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures. The capital will fund the production rollout of Varentec's intelligent power monitoring, control, and data analytics solutions for US and international electric utilities and for various industrial applications. Varentec provides innovative grid monitoring and control solutions that deliver energy savings, voltage & VAR control, demand management, improved asset utilization, and grid visibility for utilities and industrial applications. Varentec's Edge of Network Grid Optimizationâ„¢ (ENGOâ„¢) solutions leverage existing grid assets and utilize the unique architecture to deliver unprecedented levels of performance in key utility initiatives, including energy conservation, grid situational awareness and visibility, Volt-VAR optimization, improving service quality, and grid integration of distributed renewable resources.
"Varentec's intelligent, decentralized controllers operate at the edge of the network and, coupled with our software analytics, provide the 'eyes, brain and muscle' to uniquely enable real-time management of the power network," said Deepak Divan, Co-Founder, President and CTO of Varentec. "With multiple successful pilots at investor owned utilities and co-ops, Varentec is now poised for production rollouts of our Edge of Network Grid Optimizationâ„¢ (ENGOâ„¢) solutions. This Series B funding, with the backing of investors like Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla, not only validates our unique approach, but enables us to solve present grid challenges such as energy conservation, grid optimization, and grid integration of rooftop PV. It will also allow us to commercialize our cutting edge technology into transformative power delivery solutions data centers and industrial applications."
"Varentec's intelligent power management and data analytics platform is exactly the breakthrough technology that we look for in companies," said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. "Development of cost-effective, intelligent, decentralized power grid solutions has been a challenging problem that has been solved effectively by the Varentec team. This shows the path forward for transforming the present grid into a smart power delivery system and provides countless opportunities for power optimization across the global electrical grid, in data centers, and in other power-intensive applications."
