Energy company GridBeyond raises €52.5m in new funding

GridBeyond has secured €52.5m in a Series C funding round as it continues its international expansion.

Dublin-headquartered GridBeyond is an energy distribution services firm. It works with companies to design a path to net-zero emissions by optimising energy usage.

It also owns and manages solar farms, batteries and other clean energy assets.

The funding round was led by Klima, the energy transition firm ran by financial services firm Alantra. New investors included Energy Impact Partners, ABB, Constellation and Yokogawa Electric Corporation.

The business plans to use the new funding to expand its operations in existing markets, including a planned expansion of its US business.

“It’s to grow that business in the UK and Ireland,” chief executive Michael Phelan said, pointing to an example of the firm’s current contracts with data centres.

“[We are] linking them with wind farms and solar farms in Ireland, doing the same in the UK and other places and helping them on the path to zero carbon,” he said. “We’re growing that business at the moment.”

In recent years, the company, which was founded in 2010, has also moved into the US market. GridBeyond employs around 30 people there and is active in a number of states.

The business also has operations in Australia and Japan.

“GridBeyond has established itself as a VPP [virtual power plant] leader across different countries, enabling stakeholders throughout the value chain to optimise energy,” added Bastien Gambini, managing director of investor Klima.

The company also plans to use the new funding to further develop its technology. GridBeyond has an artificial intelligence platform which looks to offer deeper insights on upcoming weather conditions.

Its technology also focuses on optimising an organisation’s energy usage through different sources, including storage, use of renewables and local utilities.

“Demand is increasing,” Mr Phelan said. “The knowledge of needing to go on a path to net-zero carbon, to commit to customers, to shareholders, to employees that the company is doing that, has only increased.”

The company reported that annual revenue has risen by an average of 70pc each year for the past three years. It is forecasting similar growth for this year.

Mr Phelan added that the cost of some of the assets involved in going net zero are simultaneously decreasing as interest from organisations increases.

“The cost of batteries, in particular, is probably even half again this year, which would drive EV [electric vehicles] and battery storage,” he said.

The company also completed its first acquisition last year, purchasing an American software firm. New York-listed Veritone forecasts wind and solar output, the load – or demand for electricity on the grid on a given day – and the price of all the various energy sources.

Mr Phelan says the business would be open to further deals in the future.

“We will look if we can find something that’s complementary to us in a market we are interested in or that we want to enter fairly quickly,” he said.