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GridBeyond Closes €10.5 Million for Distributed Energy Resource Management

January 27, 2020 by Paul Shepard

GridBeyond, an intelligent energy & smart grid platform provider for distributed energy resource management, has successfully concluded its Series B financing round. A number of high-profile partners have invested in a €10.5m (£9m) transaction to support the scale-up its artificial intelligence and automation capabilities for smart grid and global energy networks.

The leading investor in the round was EDP - Energias De Portugal, the Portuguese electric utility company and a global leader in the renewable energy sector. They were supported in the transaction by existing and new investors in the company:

  • Act Venture Capital - a leading Irish venture capital firm
  • Electricity Supply Board (ESB) - the leading Irish utility
  • Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures - the Total Group's venture capital arm that supports technologies and solutions that help companies reduce their carbon footprint

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GridBeyond currently operates in the UK and Ireland and will use this new equity funding to further expand its business offerings, increase market share and establish operations in new territories. The company plans to double the workforce within the next three years and increase research and development to strengthen its global leadership position in driving innovation and advancement in smart grid markets.

Michael Phelan, Chief Executive and Co-founder at GridBeyond, commented: "The newly completed financing round sets GridBeyond on the path to increase the reach of our intelligent energy platform, delivering world leading AI and powerful automation capabilities to smart grid and energy markets. This supports our ambition to advance the transition of the global energy networks towards digitalization, decarbonization, and decentralization. All while enhancing commercial and operational benefits for market participants through fast-acting automation and optimization of demand and distributed generation.

"I would like to thank EDP, Act Venture Capital, ESB, and Total Carbon Neutrality Venture for their trust in GridBeyond, our expertise and technology. The new investment supports the business' plans to further develop our award-winning energy technology platform, Point, and expand into new markets. We are looking forward to implementing the next stages of our development and accelerating our business growth plans over the coming months".

For Vera Pinto Pereira, CEO of EDP Comercial, "this investment is driven by our ambition to gain experience in managing flexibility in distributed assets and seek new energy products and services that meet the changing needs of the energy customer, as well as by our objective to strengthen EDP's international expansion. The changing paradigm of our sector, with the electrification of the economy, decentralization of energy generation, and overall digitalization, leads to the adoption of new technologies that, with the appropriate regulatory framework, allow for a more dynamic portfolio that includes the market's participation in demand response through flexibility services, something we anticipate will be key to the adequate equilibrium of the electric system in the near future."

Debbie Rennick at Act Venture Capital, commented: "As energy service markets grow and migration to the grid edge continues, there is increasing demand for an intelligent energy management platform with deep understanding of how to optimize value without disruption to energy assets.

"The team at GridBeyond have an excellent combination of strong domain expertise and an innovative platform to maximize the opportunity. We are delighted to continue supporting them along the journey to become the global market leader".

Brian Ryan, Strategy Manager at ESB, commented: "ESB is pleased to announce today our further investment in our strategic partnership with GridBeyond, following a significant investment in 2016.

This relationship has allowed ESB's Smart Energy Services division to leverage from GridBeyond cutting-edge technology, as part of our overall portfolio of energy solutions, to significantly reduce energy costs for large-scale energy users."

"Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures is proud to invest in companies that contribute to a carbon-neutral future through their technological innovations. Our investments support Total's ambition to become the responsible energy major", commented Girish Nadkarni, Chief Executive Officer at Total Carbon Neutrality Ventures.