Expat Startmate startup Gridcog powers up on $14 million Series A
Startmate 2020 climate tech alumni Gridcog has raised $14 million (US$10m) in a Series A.
The raise for the expat Australian energy modelling startup, now based in London, was led by Swiss listed electrification firm ABB, supported by Axpo, DNV Ventures and VERBUND X Ventures, as well as existing investors AlbionVC and Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
Gridcog, formerly Gridcognition, models hybrid energy projects to integrate more renewable power generation. It’s done that for more than 16,000 energy projects across 40+ markets for the likes of Shell, Greenvolt, NextEnergy Capital, European Energy, Vestas, and PwC.
The startup now has offices in London, Berlin, Madrid, Perth and Melbourne.
Cofounder and CEO Fabian Le Gay Brereton said there was strategic significance in ABB, Axpo, DNV and Verbund, which span industrial electrification, energy consulting, and large-scale generation and trading as investors.
“Their collective backing is a signal that transparent, rigorous modelling is becoming foundational for the energy transition, not a nice-to-have,” he said.
“Renewables completely dominate new power additions worldwide, but renewables-dominant power systems need an enormous amount of flexibility. This is where the energy transition will be won or lost, and right now flexibility is the hardest thing to model well.”
Kaare Helle, head of DNV Ventures, said Gridcog turns weeks of spreadsheet modelling into hours of fast, transparent analysis.
“Accelerating energy transition projects is essential to meeting global decarbonisation targets, and by bringing our trusted data into Gridcog’s platform, we can help developers make faster, more bankable decisions far earlier in a project’s life,” he said.
