enspired closed a competitive Series A funding round in 2021 with USD 8.7 million in an effort to boost grid flexibility across Europe.
November 29, 2021. Energy trading-as-a-service company enspired lands USD 8.7M of fresh capital, adding to its momentum to solve a key challenge in the energy transition by making power grids more flexible. The funding round, co-led by Emerald Technology Ventures and 360 Capital – two leading venture capital firms investing in technology that supports the energy transition – will further accelerate the company’s expansion across Europe just 18 months after its inception. Corporate venture capital investors EnBW New Ventures and Helen Ventures are joining the syndicate together with co-investor i5invest.
Founded in 2020, enspired’s mission is to enable a full transition to clean energy by providing power grids with much-needed flexibility. The minds behind enspired – Juergen Mayerhofer (CEO), Wolfgang Eichberger (CTO) and Mario Schmoltzi (CCO) – bring decades of experience in the energy and software industry to the fully digital trading-as-a-service (TaaS) company, using Artificial Intelligence to advance from traditional trading. enspired commercially optimizes power generation, storage, and consumption assets on so-called “spot markets” – short-term power exchanges that help to balance supply and demand.
Mayerhofer explains: “Building new wind and solar parks is only one part of the energy transition equation. Power grids need to be balanced between generation and consumption at all times, and the increasing share of renewables leads to generation that fluctuates with weather and can rarely be predicted in advance with great accuracy. To prevent blackouts, deviations in generation and consumption can be traded on power exchanges, sparing the grid operator from having to take last-minute action.”
Spot markets have seen skyrocketing growth over the last few years yet are difficult to understand and hard to enter for most players. “Trading on a short-term energy exchange requires hard-to-find trading talent, a 24/7 shift setup, and access to the market. That alone is a big enough hurdle for most players not to bring their flexibility to the exchange,” adds Schmoltzi.
enspired’s TaaS platform not only eliminates entry barriers but promises the most profitable way for its clients to trade flexibility. Eichberger explains the technical edge: “At enspired, all trades get executed in a fully automated fashion using advanced AI-based algorithms that outperform the market. We’re leveraging all available data, taking and executing trading decisions in milliseconds to monetize our clients’ flexibility to the fullest while supporting the grid.”
This setup has sparked interest from asset owners, storage operators and demand-side resources alike, and the company has seen tremendous market interest across Europe early on. Hans Dellenbach, partner at Emerald Technology Ventures, explains one of the reasons for investing: “enspired’s profit-sharing model means there’s no upfront cost to clients, making it easy to try out. This innovative service design is an incredibly exciting new way to tackle the green energy transition.” Cesare Maifredi, general partner at 360 Capital adds: “Making renewable energy and energy storage more valuable while improving the stability of the grid is paramount if we want to tackle climate change. enspired materially contributes to the development of a more sustainable energy market while delivering substantial value to its clients, grid operators and ultimately to our society.”
enspired is a fully digital energy trading-as-a-service company headquartered in Vienna. We drive the energy transition by enabling our clients to bring flexible assets to power spot markets and capture their full value with our AI-based trading services. Our team consists of leading algorithmic traders, data scientists and technology enthusiasts who firmly believe that the way power is traded will soon change drastically - in our world, there is no room for trading screens and traditional optimization. www.enspired-trading.com
Press Contact: Maximiliane Resch, maximiliane.resch@enspired-trading.com
Emerald is a globally recognized investment firm and strategic partner in the transition to a greener future, with offices in Zurich, Toronto and Singapore. Founded in 2000, it has raised five venture capital funds, backed 70 emerging industrial technology leaders through over 500 venture investment transactions and managed five third-party investment mandates, including for the governments of Singapore and Switzerland, providing loan guarantees for over 100 start-ups. Emerald is a trusted open innovation partner for sustainable impact of numerous multi-national corporations, leveraging deep industry expertise and rich global deal flow in the areas of energy, water, industrial IT, advanced materials, recycling, mobility, robotics and agriculture. www.emeraldventures.com
360 Capital is a Venture Capital firm investing in early-stage, innovative deep tech and digital enterprises across Europe. The firm has a 20-year track record of supporting talented tech entrepreneurs in developing ambitious and disruptive companies in a variety of sectors. Led by a diverse and experienced team of professionals located in Paris and Milan, 360 Capital has €400M of assets under management and an active portfolio of over 50 companies. www.360cap.vc
i5invest invests into high-potential tech companies with extraordinary founding teams. Operating out of Berlin, Palo Alto, San Francisco and Vienna, i5 also acts as international tech M&A advisor and has set up over 150 strategic partnerships and M&A transactions with companies such as Google, Salesforce, Verisign, Samsung, Qualcomm, Microsoft and many other global tier 1 technology giants. www.i5invest.com
ENV supports entrepreneurs to develop smart infrastructure solutions for a sustainable future - people, planet, profit - by leveraging our financially driven VC setup with the reach and skills of the corporate investor EnBW. With an investment volume of 100 million euros, EnBW New Ventures offers startups access to professional investor expertise and a customer and supplier network in the areas of energy and infrastructure. The startups that they invest in engage and scale with EnBW in its transformation towards becoming a sustainable and digital infrastructure operator. www.env.vc
Helen Ventures invests 50 million euros in the most innovative and transformative European startups in the energy, e-mobility, circular economy, decarbonization and digital solutions space. Together they supercharge the future. They accelerate the growth of early and growth-stage companies by developing world-class solutions in collaboration with their customers and industry experts. Helen Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of Helen Ltd., an energy company making the possibilities of a new energy era accessible to all. www.helenventures.fi
enspired has secured € 25.5 million in Series B funding to accelerate the energy transition with grid-transforming power asset optimization.
An AI-powered trading service achieves the best profit for your battery storage asset while supporting the transition to clean energy.
Power sells, but who’s buying? Often, it’s the sellers themselves. Dive into power asset optimization and financial trades.