Houston-based Amperon Holdings Inc. has raised more funding for its electric grid forecasting technology.
Amperon announced May 5 it raised a $7 million Series A funding round led by HSBC Asset Management (NYSE: HSBC), which invested through its Climate Tech venture fund. The funding round also saw participation from Riverstone Holdings, Muus Asset Management, Climate Capital and Kiran Bhatraju, the CEO of renewable energy company Arcadia. The Houston-based company has raised a total of $10 million in funding.
Amperon is developing an artificial intelligence-powered platform for electric grid forecasting, and electric grids are going through a time of rapid change. Massive amounts of new renewable energy generation and battery storage sites are being hooked up to grids. Extreme weather events — from deep freezes to heat waves — are placing pressure on electric grid reliability in states like Texas and California.
"There has been major underinvestment in utilities who still rely on legacy tools for their demand forecasting needs," said Michael D'Aurizio, investment director at HSBC Asset Management. "However, power grids have taken on more intermittent renewables, flexible demand and dealing with increasingly volatile weather. This poses a risk-management challenge."
Amperon argues that amid these monumental changes to electricity grids, tools and technologies to predict demand haven't kept up.
"I've been in this industry for 17 years, and the tools companies currently use are completely ineffective to tackle the energy transition," said Sean Kelly, co-founder and CEO at Amperon. "We need a grid that runs on AI to keep up with these exponential changes. This partnership with HSBC means we can expand our presence to reach every electricity market participant."
Using the fresh venture funding, Amperon plans to expand its electricity demand analytics to new markets in Europe and Asia, the company said. Amperon is already active in the U.S., Canada and Australia, where the firm works with commercial and industrial customers, utilities, power retailers, grid operators and energy traders.
"We believe that the energy world has been vastly underserved by the smartest AI minds, and we intend to bring the two together," said Abe Stanway, co-founder and chief technology officer at Amperon.
Amperon was founded in 2018 by Stanway, an experienced data engineer, and Kelly, who has a background in energy trading.
HSBC Asset Management, the asset management business for HSBC Group, managed $621 billion in client assets as of March 31.
