When we launched Amperon in 2018, we were already seeing how extreme weather events – and the added volatility of new technologies on the supply and demand sides – were straining the grid. Fast forward 5 years, and the energy markets have become even more turbulent. ERCOT reached its tipping point this summer. Last winter, the Southeast had a black swan event that took out power over the Christmas holidays. CAISO experienced rolling blackouts in the summer of 2022. ERCOT had a massive grid failure from Winter Sorm Uri in February 2021. And the list goes on.
Now, more than ever, power markets need advanced data analytics software to ensure the grid remains balanced and that we have reliable, sustainable, and affordable power during the energy transition.
This is why we are excited to announce that Amperon raised $20 million in Series B funding, led by Energize Capital. Other participants in this round include the D. E. Shaw group, Veriten, and existing investor, HSBC Asset Management. Two long-time Amperon customers, Ørsted and another strategic utility partner, also joined the round. This brings Amperon’s total funding to $30 million.
“Today’s electricity grid is facing uniquely modern challenges as we work to rapidly transform our energy assets and decarbonize our economy,” said Energize Capital Partner Tyler Lancaster, who joins the Amperon board of directors. “To facilitate the energy transition – a multitrillion-dollar market opportunity — we need more software tools custom-built to handle the complexities of our evolving energy markets. Amperon’s AI-powered analytics platform is exactly that, providing the accuracy and sophistication necessary for energy players across the value chain to manage their energy use and streamline our collective pathway to net-zero. After getting to know Sean and the Amperon team since inception, Energize is thrilled to officially partner with them as a lead investor in this funding.”
The funding will propel Amperon's evolution from an electricity demand forecasting platform to a comprehensive data analytics solution. There are growing complexities on the demand and supply sides. The demand side is seeing more flexible load and rapid electrification driving demand growth and the supply side is experiencing increasing penetration of variable resources.
Amperon has already invested in building a robust and scalable data ingestion and management platform that analyzes time-series electricity data from different grids and sources. This will play a kep part as we expand our data analytics offerings, inclucding with carbon analytics.
Bessemer Venture Partners listed Amperon in their 2023 Climate and Energy Software Roadmap as one of the leading software companies for the energy transition. From the report: “While solar panels, heat pumps, and EVs will be critical to address the energy challenges ahead of us, software will play a significant role in how people build new systems and processes for the clean energy industry.”
We built Amperon around implementing the latest advancements in AI and cloud computing to tackle the oceans of energy data. Between 15-minute interval, smart meter data and the increasingly complex weather and grid varabiales, traditional ways of forecasting demand were inefficient. With this investment, we will remain at the forefront of AI, enabling us to fine tune our predictive models and identify emerging patterns for our customers.
In his “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster,” Bill Gates highlights that the electricity sector is responsible for about a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions, but more importantly, "decarbonizing the grid is the foundation for decarbonizing everything else." This challenge also represents a major opportunity to deliver improved data, analytics, and forecasting to improve grid reliability, while accelerating grid decarbonization.
From global climate initiatives striving to achieve net-zero objectives and the increasing expectations on corporations to slash their emissions, a significant hurdle still remains when it comes to carbon accounting: The lack of high-resolution, real-time data. It’s simple, but you can’t manage what you can’t measure.
There are major advancements across many sectors to combat climate change. Everything from hydrogen, EVs, direct air capture, and behind-the-meter assets are necessary tools to reduce carbon. But to ensure we are not bringing more fossil fuels onto the grid, these new efforts need to understand how to maximize decarbonization and comply with the evolving government regulations.
We already work with customers to provide hourly, marginal emissions data and location-based Scope 2 calculations. This funding will help us accelerate that customer work and productize multiple use cases that help companies measure the carbon footprint of their hourly electricity usage, optimize load and lower-carbon power resources, and more deeply integrate carbon into industry business models.
There has been a boon in batteries, backup generation, on-site solar, virtual power plants, and VPPs. But one thing they all require is better electricity data. A higher level of granularity ensures every asset is operating at its peak, driving higher energy yields, and reducing downtime. This investment will help us build better tools for these growing technologies.
With better site-level asset forecasts, they can better understand when to ramp up production, sell excess energy back to the grid, or store energy for later use. Accurate forecasts will not only maximize their assets but also help relieve the grid in times of stress.
For example, generators can spot the most opportune times in the market to run their assets. Amperon’s short-term forecasts allow them to see the impact of changing weather patterns and renewable ramp-up periods to maximize revenue. Or, IPPs can better manage risk by using their load-serving obligations to act as a natural hedge for the generation. But to do this, they need accurate load forecasts to know when to buy or sell excess generation.
We’ve helped top retailers, public power entities, traders, and commercial and industrial clients mitigate risk and improve their operations with more accurate forecasts.
This funding will accelerate our expansion into new markets that are experiencing the same volatility as the U.S., as well as build new products that will be beneficial here and abroad.
“The energy transition is creating unprecedented market volatility, and Amperon is uniquely positioned to help market participants better navigate the transitioning grid – both in the U.S. and as we expand globally,” said Sean Kelly, CEO and co-founder of Amperon. “We've already established ourselves as the premier provider of electricity demand forecasting software. 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."
We grew our revenue by 5x and our headcount by 4x in the last two years. As we look at what’s next for Amperon, we are hiring more engineers, data scientists, customer support, and sales roles to expedite our goal of building a more reliable and sustainable grid.