Smart Grid VC Investment Surge?

Last year investors mostly talked about the smart grid - this year they’re investing.

Eric Wesoff January 21, 2010

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

Last year, despite the hype, not that much VC funding went into the smart grid.

But it looks like a shift has occured in VC willingness to invest in the grid.

We have six smart grid investments so far in 2010, only three weeks into the year:

Ecobee raised $6.4 million from Ontario Emerging Technologies Fund, JLA Ventures and Tech Capital Partners for programmable thermostats for residential and light commercial applications.
Ecofactor's $2.4 million dollar raise
Ember raised $5 million in venture debt from Wellington Financial for ZigBee chipsets for wireless Home Area Networks.
PassivSystems, a UK-based smart grid home energy management firm, received funding from Wheb Venture.
Tantalus Systems, a maker of two-way, real-time smart grid data communications, raised a $14 million funding round led by Redpoint Ventures. Tantalus’ wireless communications technology automates processes like outage detection, load forecasting, billing and reporting, demand response, and maintenance.
Verdiem's $4.7 million from Kleiner Perkins and Microsoft for PC energy management