A year after securing its Series A round, a local energy technology company’s growth has attracted investors for another round of funding.
Amperon Holdings Inc. said Oct. 3 that it closed a $20 million Series B round. Returning investor HSBC Asset Management joined the D.E. Shaw Group, Veriten, and round leader Energize Capital to raise capital. Additionally, Amperon said two of its customers, including Denmark-based energy company Ørsted, were involved in the funding.
Energize Capital Partner Tyler Lancaster joined Amperon’s board of directors as part of the funding round. Amperon has raised $30 million in funding to date, according to the announcement.
Amperon plans to use this round of funding to transition its artificial intelligence-powered platforms from solely offering electricity-demand forecasting to incorporating data analytics and grid decarbonization. The company did not specify whether it would use the funds to expand its team further, following a wave of hires in 2022 after Amperon closed a $7 million Series A round.
Amperon said that in addition to quadrupling its headcount since 2021, the company has grown its revenue by five times in the same period. Amperon CEO and co-founder Sean Kelly said increased market volatility will create more demand for the company.
“We've already established ourselves as the premier provider of electricity demand forecasting software,” Kelly said. “With this funding, we are poised to leverage our cutting-edge AI models to enable customers to unlock more value from data and asset optimization, spanning from on-site solar to commercial load management with backup generation and microgrid deployment.”
Amperon was founded in 2018 in New York City but relocated to Houston a year later along with Kelly. He saw a void in the predictive and forecasting technology space for power traders and other customers exposed to volatile electricity markets, like data centers and retail energy providers.
Market volatility was especially evident in Texas in recent months, as the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which is the state’s grid operator, reported new all-time power demand records in the Lone Star State due to soaring temperatures. According to ERCOT data, new peak power demand records were set every month between June and September 2023, with all peaks exceeding 80,000 MW. The all-time peak demand record was set Aug. 10, with a demand of 85,464 MW.
With state officials acknowledging the importance of renewables and battery storage in supporting Texas’ natural gas grid operations, several other Houston companies have bolstered their operations in those sectors. Houston-based Enel North America, a subsidiary of Italy-based Enel, brought 369 megawatts online through five new battery installations located throughout Texas.
One major company that is turning to renewable microgrids for its operations is Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT). The Washington-based software giant struck a deal with France-based Engie SA to provide renewable power to its Texas data centers and tapped Houston-based Enchanted Rock to build a microgrid in California supported by renewable natural gas.
