Smart grid venture capital (VC) funding in Q3 2013 totaled $65 million in 12 deals compared to $50 million in 10 deals in Q2 2013. VC funding in the sector has remained flat at this level over the last eight quarters, with the exception of Q3 2012 when $238 million was raised. Total corporate funding in the sector was $129 million, including the $64 million raised in an IPO.
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“Funding was slightly up this quarter. We also saw a rare IPO this quarter,” commented Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group.
The Top 5 VC deals were led by Space-Time Insight, which raised $20 million from London-based private equity fund Zouk Capital, which joined current investors Opus Capital Ventures, EnerTech Capital and Novus Energy Partners. On-Ramp Wireless raised $15 million from new investor Enbridge along with existing investors Third Wave Ventures and Energy Technology Ventures. This brings the total amount raised in its Series C round to $31 million.
Varentec raised $8 million from Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures. This was a new addition to Bill Gates’ collection of energy investments. Bidgely raised $5 million also from Khosla Ventures; and WaterSmart raised $4.5 million from Physic Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Apsara Capital and The Westly Group.
Like the previous quarter, home and building automation companies received the most funding with $36 million in seven deals followed by grid optimization companies with $20 million in one deal.
There were four M&A transactions in Q3. Only one transaction, Schneider Electric’s acquisition of Invensys for $5.2 billion, was disclosed. This is Schneider Electric’s sixth smart grid acquisition.
The third quarter also saw a successful exit in the IPO of Control4, a provider of automation and control solutions for the connected home, which raised $64 million.
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Companies in Q3 2013:
Aircuity, Bidgely, Choose Energy, Control4, cyberGRID, Energy Curtailment Specialists, Enmetric Systems, Invensys, NRG Energy, On-Ramp Wireless, People Power, Power2Switch, Schneider Electric, Space-Time Insight, Tado, TM3 Systems, Toshiba Corporation, TROVE Predictive Data Science, Varentec, WaterSmart Software, Xtreme Power
