Irish smart energy company GridBeyond has closed a €52m series C financing round to support the scale-up of the business.

The company will use the funding to support its international expansion, grow its existing US presence significantly and continue its investment in R&D to facilitate the delivery of a global zero-carbon future.

Since its foundation in 2010, GridBeyond has been developing its AI platform to help businesses unlock the potential of energy assets, ensuring the sustainability, resilience and affordability of energy as the world moves towards zero-carbon.

The technology can unleash the latent power within every connected asset, including utility-scale renewables generation, battery storage and energy demand load. This bridges the gap between distributed energy resources and the requirements of the power grid, enabling stakeholders across the energy value chain, from generators and network operators to end users, to optimise energy use for price and carbon footprint.

The funding will be used to evolve GridBeyond’s technology and push its Grid Edge virtual power plant (VPP) worldwide. It will let the company build on its capability in optimising assets such as demand response, storage and renewables and help grid operators and local utilities increase the use of flexible assets and low-carbon technologies rapidly integrating into the system through the electrification of heat and transportation.

Finally, it will facilitate GridBeyond’s growth into international markets as regulatory environments and renewable penetration levels progress. It will also facilitate expansion of its US business and support delivery of its storage, EV (V2G) and DR offerings across the USA and other deregulated markets with high renewable penetration levels; this is already well underway. This growth is driven by the increasing need for flexibility to achieve the zero-carbon future the company strives to deliver.

“We are delighted to complete this transaction,” said Michael Phelan, CEO of GridBeyond. “This funding will enable us to expand our product offering and strengthen our leadership position in this space. The newly completed financing round sets GridBeyond on the path to increase the reach of our intelligent energy platform and deliver world leading AI and powerful automation capabilities to smart grid and energy markets across the world. This supports our ambition to advance the transition of the global energy networks towards digitalisation, decarbonisation and decentralisation, all while enhancing commercial and operational benefits for market participants through fast-acting automation and optimisation of flexible demand, storage and distributed generation.”

Last year, GridBeyond expanded its team across all deregulated markets in the USA, acquired Veritone Business Energy, launched a suite of products and doubled the size of its team globally. In addition, in the past three years the company has been increasing its annual revenue on average by 70% per year with a forecast of further similar growth in 2024.

The funding round was led by Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund, Klima (www.alantra.com/what-we-do/alternative-asset-management/venture-capital-2/energy-transition). The series C round also included new investors Energy Impact Partners, Mirova, ABB, Constellation and Yokogawa Electric, as well as investment from existing investor Act Venture Capital.

“GridBeyond has established itself as a VPP leader across different countries, enabling stakeholders throughout the value chain to optimise energy,” said Bastien Gambini, managing partner of Klima. “We are thrilled to support the company’s expansion and its additional services aimed at guiding customers on their path to achieving net zero-carbon.”

GridBeyond (www.gridbeyond.com) is a smart energy company led by Michael Phelan and Richard O’Loughlin. By leveraging AI, it creates value from energy generation, demand and storage to deliver a zero-carbon future.