Silver Spring pumps another $15M into smart grid tech
Silver Spring Networks, a company that wirelessly connects residential smart meters with utilities, has added another $15 million to its now $90 million fourth round of funding, reports VentureWire. Open since October, the round will help the company expand and bring more utilities into its fold.
Silver Spring, which competes with other smart grid meter companies like GridPoint, Ambient and SmartSynch, says it has about 500,000 homes in its network. These homes are outfitted with meters that wirelessly transfer energy consumption data back to local utilities. But this is nothing compared to what the Redwood City, Calif. company says it has in store. In the last couple of years, it signed contracts to connect 5 million PG&E customers, 4.5 million for Florida Power & Light and 1.9 million for Pepco Holdings. All told, these deals should add up to 12 million new homes to Silver Spring’s network.
In addition to expanding domestically, the company has plans to deploy its metering system in Australia, having already signed a contract with an unnamed major utility there. It is also eyeing potential projects in South America and Europe.
Silver Spring may also benefit from the recent economic stimulus bill, which allocated $4.5 billion for smart grid development. Utilities that receive these funds are going to need to integrate smart metering technology as quickly as possible, which will no doubt be good news for Silver Spring and its peers, according to VentureWire.
Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers contributed to the recently closed round. The company wouldn’t disclose the identities of the other contributors. It last raised funds in April 2008, bringing in $59.3 million from JVB Properties, Foundation Capital and Edison Electric Institute. It also raised $10.5 million in debt and warrants from the same sources in 2007.
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About the Author, Camille Ricketts
Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
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