Seven investors joined a fourth round of venture capital financing for Powerit Holdings. The Seattle-based company says it will use the new funds to scale Powerit Solutions, build distribution channels, and expand its footprint in energy management in the industrial sector.
Black Coral Capital, Siemens Venture Capital, @Ventures, Expansion Capital, and Stellar Holdings invested in this round, which also included Powerit Solutions chairman and former CEO Claes Olsson, and current CEO Kevin Klustner.
Powerit’s technology, the Spara energy management system, allows energy-intensive companies to cope with dynamic energy prices and to benefit from utility initiatives, such as demand response programs, that reduce stress on the grid. Many demand-response programs require participants to take action with short lead times and increasing frequency, making an automated response essential. The financial incentives for participating in demand response and dynamic pricing can be lucrative.
Even in utility territories where demand response isn’t offered, big energy users look to shave their peak electricity loads. Although not the biggest energy-consuming sector, industrial facilities use considerably more power than similar-sized office buildings. When forges, factories and flash-freezers ramp up production, energy costs skyrocket. Trimming the highest loads helps those facilities reduce costly peak demand charges from their utilities.
Spara (Swedish for “save”) works for commercial buildings as well as industrial ones. It supports all the usual standard communication protocols, such as BACnet and Modbus, for building and industrial automation. Currently a server-based application, Spara EMS is moving toward a cloud-based industrial energy management platform, now in beta.
Powerit is hardly a startup. Its roots are in Malmö, Sweden, where more than six years ago it co-developed Energy Director, an application for automating energy management in the industrial sector with minimal impact on facility processes. A convoluted series of events led to Powerit Holdings‘ current trans-Atlantic business. Powerit Solutions was named by Smart Grid News as a company to watch in 2012.
Powerit also sells in Europe, where there’s a strong market for automated energy management. Vendors there work very closely with utilities. Many European countries have an electric monopoly or oligopoly, and often the utilities are state owned. Technology deployments confront fewer obstacles because there are fewer constituents; in the U.S. there are some 3,000 utilities of various types.
The company has raised three previous rounds, in July 2007 ($7 million), April 2009 ($6.1 million), and Feb, 2011 ($5 million).
The author has previously provided marketing consulting services to Powerit Solutions.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/energy/2012/04/12/powerit-raises-3-million-vc-round-to-expand/
Black Coral Capital, Siemens Venture Capital, @Ventures, Expansion Capital, and Stellar Holdings invested in this round, which also included Powerit Solutions chairman and former CEO Claes Olsson, and current CEO Kevin Klustner.
Powerit’s technology, the Spara energy management system, allows energy-intensive companies to cope with dynamic energy prices and to benefit from utility initiatives, such as demand response programs, that reduce stress on the grid. Many demand-response programs require participants to take action with short lead times and increasing frequency, making an automated response essential. The financial incentives for participating in demand response and dynamic pricing can be lucrative.
Even in utility territories where demand response isn’t offered, big energy users look to shave their peak electricity loads. Although not the biggest energy-consuming sector, industrial facilities use considerably more power than similar-sized office buildings. When forges, factories and flash-freezers ramp up production, energy costs skyrocket. Trimming the highest loads helps those facilities reduce costly peak demand charges from their utilities.
Spara (Swedish for “save”) works for commercial buildings as well as industrial ones. It supports all the usual standard communication protocols, such as BACnet and Modbus, for building and industrial automation. Currently a server-based application, Spara EMS is moving toward a cloud-based industrial energy management platform, now in beta.
Powerit is hardly a startup. Its roots are in Malmö, Sweden, where more than six years ago it co-developed Energy Director, an application for automating energy management in the industrial sector with minimal impact on facility processes. A convoluted series of events led to Powerit Holdings‘ current trans-Atlantic business. Powerit Solutions was named by Smart Grid News as a company to watch in 2012.
Powerit also sells in Europe, where there’s a strong market for automated energy management. Vendors there work very closely with utilities. Many European countries have an electric monopoly or oligopoly, and often the utilities are state owned. Technology deployments confront fewer obstacles because there are fewer constituents; in the U.S. there are some 3,000 utilities of various types.
The company has raised three previous rounds, in July 2007 ($7 million), April 2009 ($6.1 million), and Feb, 2011 ($5 million).
The author has previously provided marketing consulting services to Powerit Solutions.
http://blog.seattlepi.com/energy/2012/04/12/powerit-raises-3-million-vc-round-to-expand/
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