Strategic Financing Round to Support Rapid Expansion in Headcount and R&D
ARLINGTON, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--OPOWER, the leading energy efficiency and Smart Grid software company, today announced the closing of a $50 million strategic round of financing. The round was co-led by Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with participation from New Enterprise Associates (NEA), OPOWER’s largest investor. The investment will support OPOWER’s rapid expansion and accelerate its product development efforts in order to add new products and features to its Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform in 2011. Global demand for OPOWER’s products and services is at an all-time high. The company’s platform has been proven to help electric and gas utilities engage their customers, drive unprecedented gains in energy efficiency, and improve customer satisfaction. OPOWER’s prior financing was in 2008, with capital raised from NEA and early-stage fund MHS Capital.
“It is a straight forward value for customers – clearly measuring savings on their energy bills.”
“We are thrilled to raise this strategic round of financing from three of the best venture capital firms in the business,” said Dan Yates, CEO and co-founder of OPOWER. “The addition of Accel Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers builds on the strength of our existing investors, and is an important step forward in achieving our goal of engaging tens of millions of households about their energy use and helping drive the next wave of energy efficiency in the U.S. and abroad.”
OPOWER’s SaaS platform is the industry’s leading customer engagement platform, and has quickly gained popularity in the utility industry as an innovative, information-based energy efficiency program, as well as the leading front-end for utilities’ Smart Grid deployments. The platform uses data analytics to evaluate a household’s energy usage patterns – without the need for hardware to be installed inside the home – and applies behavioral science techniques and a multi-channel communication strategy to engage millions of homes and motivate energy saving actions. Currently deployed to more than two million homes, OPOWER is delivering enough energy savings to power nearly 50,000 homes on an ongoing basis. The company expects its deployed customer base to more than quadruple in 2011. OPOWER currently works with 45 utilities throughout the U.S., including seven of the country’s ten largest energy providers.
“OPOWER is an elegant and proven solution for utilities to cost-effectively reach energy efficiency goals,” said Ray Lane of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. “It is a straight forward value for customers – clearly measuring savings on their energy bills.”
“We believe OPOWER has a profound opportunity to leverage the power of the Internet and social media to deepen consumer engagement in the energy world, and to use this engagement to drive critical gains in efficiency,” said Peter Wagner, partner at Accel Partners. “We look forward to supporting OPOWER’s continued growth as the next-generation SaaS leader of the energy sector.”
About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners is a leading venture capital and growth equity investment firm, working with outstanding entrepreneurs and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today manages over $6B globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, London, New Delhi, Bangalore and China through our partnership with IDG-Accel.
Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including Facebook, Groupon, ComScore, AdMob, Etsy, Kayak, Macromedia, MetroPCS, Playfish, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback Networks, Riverbed, SunRun, UUNet, Veritas, Walmart.com, and others. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com, or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accel.
About Kleiner Perking Caufield & Byers
Since its founding in 1972, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has backed entrepreneurs in over 500 ventures, including AOL, Amazon.com, Citrix, Compaq Computer, Electronic Arts, Genentech, Genomic Health, Google, Intuit, Juniper Networks, Netscape, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Verisign and Zynga. KPCB has allocated over $1.5B to investment in greentech and has invested in over 50 greentech companies. KPCB portfolio companies employ more than 250,000 people. More than 150 of the firm’s portfolio companies have gone public. Many other ventures have achieved success through mergers and acquisitions. The firm has offices in Menlo Park, California; Beijing, China; and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.kpcb.com.
About New Enterprise Associates
New Enterprise Associates, Inc. (NEA) is a leading venture capital and growth equity firm focused on helping entrepreneurs build transformational businesses across multiple stages, sectors, and geographies. With approximately $11 billion in committed capital, NEA invests in information technology, healthcare and energy technology companies at all stages in a company’s lifecycle, from seed stage through IPO. The firm's long track record of successful investing includes more than 165 portfolio company IPOs and more than 265 acquisitions. In the U.S., NEA has two offices in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and one in Menlo Park, California. In addition, New Enterprise Associates (India) Pvt. Ltd. has offices in Bangalore and Mumbai, India and New Enterprise Associates (Beijing), Ltd. has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, China. For additional information, visit www.nea.com.
About OPOWER
OPOWER is an industry leader in energy efficiency and Smart Grid software, providing the industry’s only all-channel customer engagement platform proven to deliver unprecedented energy efficiency gains to utility partners. Using cutting-edge behavioral science and patent-pending data analytics, the OPOWER platform enables utilities to connect with their customers in a highly targeted fashion, motivating reductions in energy use, and increasing program participation and overall customer satisfaction. Seven of the ten largest utilities in the United States use OPOWER to significantly improve the effectiveness of their energy efficiency portfolios. For utilities with Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), the OPOWER platform represents a cost-effective way to convert hourly data into measurable energy savings, delivering the value of the Smart Grid directly to the customer. Founded in 2007 and privately held, OPOWER is headquartered in Arlington, VA. For more information, please visit www.opower.com.
