WA-based energy tech startup Gridcognition has been announced as one of eight Australian businesses to receive a share of $3.9 million in funding through the federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. Securing a total of AUD$998k matched grant funding through the Accelerating Commercialisation (AC) programme, this is the largest award in this latest round.
Co-founders Fabian Le Gay Brereton and Pete Tickler are thrilled to have been awarded the highly competitive government grant, noting that this award will help Gridcognition propel Australia’s “decentralisation” energy system.
Australia is leading the world on the shift towards decentralisation, on track to have half of electricity generated locally, and that means we’re among the first to see the challenges and opportunities this presents
This funding will be invaluable in accelerating our international growth and give us the opportunity to start trialing our technology with customers in the UK, where we have already started working with an early customer, as well as the US, and Japan.
Fabian Le Gay Brereton, Co-Founder of Gridcognition
Gridcognition will be using the funds to significantly grow its product engineering team and to lead into its next fundraising round planned for later this year. Recruitment will begin immediately and as a fully distributed team, will be searching for talent from across Australia. Interests can be submitted here.
Last year, Gridcognition participated in Startmate, Australia’s leading startup accelerator and raised a 675k pre-seed round from a number of Australia’s leading tech and clean energy investors, including the Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
18 months in
From a standing start in February 2020, Fabian and Pete have since assembled a team of data scientists, software engineers, and self-confessed ‘energy nerds’ to accelerate the transition to a fully decarbonised and decentralised energy system.
The startup provides software to plan and optimise distributed energy projects, including microgrids, virtual power plants, community energy projects, electric vehicle charging systems, and behind-the-meter renewable power plants.
The service helps energy providers, project developers, and energy users get the best commercial and environmental outcome from the deployment and operations of these assets.
Before Gridcognition, Fabian and Pete co-founded their first energy tech startup – Greensense – which went on to be Australia’s leading sustainability and energy analytics businesses, before being acquired by ERM Power, who were then acquired by Shell last year.
Since launching an alpha-version of the product to selected customers in May, Gridcognition has attracted interest from customers across Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, and is now being used to simulate and optimise virtual power plants, community batteries, electric vehicle charging networks, and behind-the-meter solar and storage systems.
For more information, visit gridcognition.com.
