Bill Gates & Khosla Ventures Invest $8 Million Into Varentec

Sign up for daily news updates from CleanTechnica on email. Or follow us on Google News!

Varentec is no household name, but the electric grid “power control solutions” provider announced yesterday that it had closed $ million in Series B funding from Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures (names that you probably do know). The $8 million is for “the production rollout of Varentec’s intelligent power monitoring, control, and data analytics solutions for US and international electric utilities and for various industrial applications.”

engo-v

“Varentec’s intelligent, decentralized controllers operate at the edge of the network and, coupled with our software analytics, provide the ‘eyes, brain and muscle’ to uniquely enable real-time management of the power network,” said Deepak Divan, Co-Founder, President and CTO of Varentec. “With multiple successful pilots at investor owned utilities and co-ops, Varentec is now poised for production rollouts of our Edge of Network Grid Optimization™ (ENGO™) solutions. This Series B funding, with the backing of investors like Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla, not only validates our unique approach, but enables us to solve present grid challenges such as energy conservation, grid optimization, and grid integration of rooftop PV. It will also allow us to commercialize our cutting edge technology into transformative power delivery solutions data centers and industrial applications.”

More immediate responsiveness allowing for quick and “smart” management of the grid has been a priority for years, but achieving that is one of those “easier said than done” things. Varentec seems to have cracked an important nut or two in this arena.

varentec 1


Varentec’s intelligent power management and data analytics platform is exactly the breakthrough technology that we look for in companies,” said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures. “Development of cost-effective, intelligent, decentralized power grid solutions has been a challenging problem that has been solved effectively by the Varentec team. This shows the path forward for transforming the present grid into a smart power delivery system and provides countless opportunities for power optimization across the global electrical grid, in data centers, and in other power-intensive applications.”

Varentec’s technology should result in massive energy savings and also in easier and more efficient integration of renewables into the grid.

From the Varentec homepage:

Our unique approach complements the centralized command and control structure that utilities use to manage the grid today, filling in a major gap in the grid-control capability.

Varentec provides a completely new approach called ENGOTM, or Edge of Network Grid OptimizationTM. Our solutions improve performance in key areas of:

  • Voltage compliance

  • Grid reliability

  • Efficiency

  • Energy savings

  • Grid integration of distributed PV

Varentec may never have the brand recognition or rockstar status of Tesla, but it is providing a critically important service and seems to have a bright future ahead of itself… at least, Bill Gates and Vinod Khosla think so!

In case you’re curious, a few of the other notable cleantech startups that Bill Gates has invested in include Aquion Energy, Ambri, and LightSail — all energy storage companies. Khosla Ventures has also backed numerous cleantech startups, such as SunBorne, Ambri, LightSail, Soraa, and Stion Corp. Yep, you probably noticed there that Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures often have overlapping investments.

Image Credits: Varentec


Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.

Latest CleanTechnica TV Video


Advertisement
 
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.

Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan