Sunairio, a developer of a weather intelligence platform for renewable energy prediction, announced the closing of an oversubscribed $6.4 million funding round. This brings the total funding raised by the company to date to $8.8 million.
The funding round was led by Buoyant Ventures, alongside Constellation Technology Ventures and MassMutual Ventures’ Climate Tech Fund, with additional participation from Rosecliff Ventures along with existing investors.
This startup company provides software platform for high-resolution climate data as well as future climate simulation for energy investment, planning, and portfolio management. It helps utility-scale asset developers, energy traders, and reliability organization for taking commercial decisions in the face of increasing grid variability and unprecedented weather.
The funding is expected to enable the company to significantly expand its market coverage and build its team.
“We’re looking forward to offering Sunairio insights for every wind farm, solar farm, demand center, utility grid, and power market in North America, which will pave the way for higher investor returns and greater reliability,” said Sunairio Founder and CEO Rob Cirincione.
In November, the company announced a pilot program with Xcel Energy-Colorado to simulate the electric grid, aiming to improve the accuracy and increase the granularity of weather data used in grid planning of Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo).
According to Mercom’s 9M and Q3 2024 Funding and M&A Report for Energy Storage and Smart Grid, VC funding across all Smart Grid companies in 9M 2024 totaled $1.4 billion in 43 deals, 13% higher year-over-year than the $1.2 billion raised in 37 deals in 9M 2023.
In October, eSmart Systems, an inspection and asset information management solutions provider for utilities, raised €30 million (~$32 million) in new capital funding, bringing its total to €63 million (~$65 million) raised in the past two years. The funding round was led by TiLT Capital Partners, a French growth capital impact fund, along with Quanta Services, which joined as a strategic investor.
