Energy trading-as-a-service company enspired lands USD 8.7M of fresh capital, adding to its momentum to solve a key challenge in the energy transition by making power grids more flexible. The funding round, co-led by Emerald Technology Ventures and 360 Capital – two leading venture capital firms investing in technology that supports the energy transition – will further accelerate the company’s expansion across Europe just 18 months after its inception. Corporate venture capital investors EnBW New Ventures and Helen Ventures are joining the syndicate together with co-investor i5invest.
Founded in 2020, enspired’s mission is to enable a full transition to clean energy by providing power grids with much-needed flexibility. The minds behind enspired – Juergen Mayerhofer (CEO), Wolfgang Eichberger (CTO) and Mario Schmoltzi (CCO) – bring decades of experience in the energy and software industry to the fully digital trading-as-a-service (TaaS) company, using Artificial Intelligence to advance from traditional trading. enspired commercially optimizes power generation, storage, and consumption assets on so-called “spot markets” – short-term power exchanges that help to balance supply and demand.
Mayerhofer explains: “Building new wind and solar parks is only one part of the energy transition equation. Power grids need to be balanced between generation and consumption at all times, and the increasing share of renewables leads to generation that fluctuates with weather and can rarely be predicted in advance with great accuracy. To prevent blackouts, deviations in generation and consumption can be traded on power exchanges, sparing the grid operator from having to take last-minute action.”
“We find enspired a very interesting and rapidly growing company in the field of digital energy. Fast adoption of renewable energy will only increase the need for short term electricity trading, and new tools are needed to support this trend”, Terhi Vapola, VP & head of Helen Ventures, comments the investment.
“We use the investment to offer our service across Europe over the next 2 years with an eye on global markets such as North America, Japan and Australia. Every megawatt (MW) of additional flexibility in the market allows to build 10-15 MW of additional renewables (wind and solar). Our target is to build a 3-digit MW flexibility portfolio and therefore support he integration of more than 1 gigawatt (GW) of additional renewables that help phasing out conventional power plants and reduce emissions.” said Mayerhofer
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