AutoGrid, a green start-up, officially launched its smart grid data analysis software with $9 million in funding.
AutoGrid also announced that it has signed agreements with 2 large customers: the City of Palo Alto Utilities and the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District.
AutoGrid has so far raised $9 million from Foundation Capital, Voyager Capital and Stanford University. It has also obtained $5 million worth of contracts from the U.S. Department of Energy's ARPA-E research agency and the California Energy Commission.
Its founders are all veterans of the utility industry and must know what they're getting into. The smart grid green sector is already crowded with fierce competition from well funded companies that have several years of head start over AutoGrid. The most interesting part of AutoGrid's story is that its main backer, Foundation Capital, has also funded AutoGrid competitors Silver Spring Networks, EnerNOC, and eMeter (since acquired by Siemens).
EnerNOC and Silver Spring Networks are both extremely well capitalized and are years ahead of AutoGrid. They both received additional funding from other big-name venture capital firms. EnerNOC got funded by Braemar Energy Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Silver Spring Networks by Kleiner Perkins. Both are doing very well, and hiring right and left, creating good green jobs; EnerNOC has about 80 open positions, and SSN has 33. In comparison, AutoGrid has 5 open positions.
AutoGrid has also a slew of other competitors in the “smart grid/energy management” space, all well capitalized by top VC firms: Adura (VantagePoint Capital Partners), Comverge (public company first funded by Rockport Capital), EcoFactor (Rockport), FirstFuel (Battery Ventures), GridNet (Braemar Energy Ventures), GridPoint (NEA), SmartSynch (acquired by Itron), Tendril (VantagePoint), Trilliant (VantagePoint), and Viridity (Braemar, Battery and GE Ecomagination). And, on top of that, let’s not forget IBM!
To succeed, AutoGrid will need a lot of luck, a lot of hard work, a lot of persistence and a lot more money! However, with $14 million in the bank, they'll be able to make strategic hires (new green jobs!), improving their likelihood of success.
TheGreenJobBank has employer profiles for more than 30 smart-grid companies, and almost all of them are currently hiring. At the top is EnerNOC, with 80 open positions, followed by Silver Spring Networks with 33 and Nexant with 25. The total of all smart-grid jobs on TheGreenJobBank is about 200.
Below are links to the profiles of the venture capital firms mentioned in this story. The profiles include the list green startups they've funded.
- Battery Ventures
- Braemar Energy Ventures
- Draper Fisher Jurvetson (DFJ)
- Foundation Capital
- Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB)
- New Entreprise Associates (NEA)
- Rockport Capital
- Sequoia Capital
- Vantagepoint Capital Partners
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