Amperon Holdings, Inc., the leader in AI-powered grid forecasts, today announced $7 million in Series A funding led by HSBC Asset Management (NYSE: HSBC), out of its new Climate Tech Venture Capital Fund. Proven to have the most accurate demand forecasts in the industry, Amperon is a critical tool for electricity market participants to address the growing issues of grid reliability and sustainability. Series A brings Amperon’s total funding to $10 million.
With the advent of renewable energy, smart meters, battery storage, electric vehicles, and extreme weather events, power markets have become increasingly complex and volatile. Meanwhile, the tools to predict demand, an essential part of balancing the grid, have lagged behind.
“I’ve been in this industry for seventeen years, and the tools companies currently use are completely ineffective to tackle the energy transition,” said Sean Kelly, CEO, and co-founder of Amperon. “We need a grid that runs on AI to keep up with these exponential changes. This partnership with HSBC means we can expand our presence to reach every electricity market participant.”
“We are excited to have Amperon in our new climate tech fund,” said Michael D’Aurizio, investment director at HSBC Asset Management. “There has been major underinvestment in utilities who still rely on legacy tools for their demand forecasting needs. However, power grids have taken on more intermittent renewables, flexible demand, and dealing with increasingly volatile weather. This poses a risk management challenge. Amperon’s laser-precise forecasts are critical building blocks that address the changes taking place on the grid and the need for net-zero emissions.”
Amperon is bringing its energy expertise and machine learning data science to solve these major problems – a combination never seen in the market before. “We believe that the energy world has been vastly underserved by the smartest AI minds and we intend to bring the two together,” said Abe Stanway, CTO, and co-founder of Amperon.
Already active throughout the US, Canada, and Australia, Amperon will be using this funding to bring their AI-enabled, electricity demand analytics to new markets in Europe and Asia and broaden their customer base to utilities, virtual power plants, commercial and industrial customers, and grid operators who are in desperate need of innovation in the face of increasingly volatile energy supply and changing demand patterns. Other participants in the round included Riverstone Holdings, Muus Asset Management, Climate Capital, and Kiran Bhatraju, CEO of Arcadia.
Current customers are already aware how instrumental Amperon is to their daily operations:
“Our virtual power plant utilizes precise forecasts and analytics that Amperon helps deliver. We are excited to continue growing with them as our trading desk partner.”
– Matt Duesterberg, Founder and President at OhmConnect
“Amperon’s innovative modeling approaches produce high quality demand forecasts for the Australian NEM.”
– Michael Davidson, Manager Operational Forecasting, Australian Energy Market Operator
“We use Amperon’s forecasting platform every day to help make better-informed decisions and to optimize our portfolio. It’s been a pivotal tool in our decision-making.”
– Trader at Orsted, the world’s largest developer of offshore wind farms