In an effort to improve the customer experience for purchasing and managing clean energy utilities, two Boulder companies announced Monday that they've merged.
Tendril and Simple Energy will now operate as Uplight, an end-to-end energy system that leverages customer interaction across channels to deliver actionable insights, lower costs and increase clean energy usage.
“To lead the transition to a clean and resilient grid, energy providers must invest in providing a world-class customer experience,” Adrian Tuck, formerly the CEO of Tendril and now the CEO of Uplight, said in a release. “We formed Uplight to help utilities do exactly that. By bringing together market leaders in energy software, we have created a unique partner that combines leading innovation in consumer engagement and proven results working across organizational silos. Together we will support the clean energy ecosystem with a new suite of capabilities that lead to true customer-centricity.”
The new company combines Tendril’s data analytics platform and Simple Energy’s consumer engagement marketplace to form a complete energy solution. Uplight's platform delivers personalized, timely and relevant energy actions based on customer-specific data to alert customers to high usage and potential energy savings, among a host of other things.
Uplight provides software and services to more than 75 of the world’s leading electric and gas utilities including Xcel Energy, Eversource, Consumers Energy and many more. The company has more than 300 employees following the merger and remains headquartered in Boulder, but has additional offices in Denver, Boston and Seattle.
Rubicon Technology Partners, which made a strategic investment in Tendril in December 2018, remains Uplight’s majority shareholder. Tendril had raised more than $100 million prior to the merger.
The AES Corporation became Simple Energy’s largest shareholder in March 2018 and continues as a key investor and innovation partner in Uplight. The company announced in a separate release that it made a $53 million strategic investment in Uplight as part of the merger.
“Uplight enables utilities to better engage their customers toward the efficient use of energy,” said Andrés Gluski, AES president and CEO, in a statement. “Together with Uplight, we are dedicated to applying leading energy technologies that give our customers a competitive edge.”
