London-based Piclo, an independent marketplace for flexibility services, announced on Wednesday that it has secured £8.3M (approximately €9.4M) in a Series B round of funding co-led by Future Energy Ventures (FEV) and Clean Growth Fund (CGF).
Existing investor Green Angel Syndicate and new investors Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions (Toshiba ESS), Sustainable Future Ventures (SFV), and Japan Energy Fund (JEF) also participated in the round.
Fund utilisation
Piclo says it will use the capital to strengthen its position in the UK and Europe, as well as grow its international presence in the US and Asia-Pacific. Additionally, the UK company will use the firms to grow its team and accelerate product development.
James Johnston, CEO at Piclo, says, “We are delighted that our investors have chosen to support Piclo and enable our vision of a decarbonised grid by 2050.”
“We believe that flexibility solutions through our marketplace have a critical role to play in the global journey to net zero and will help deliver increased energy security at lower cost, building on the great progress we’ve already made in the UK,” adds Johnston.
Piclo: Making energy networks smarter
Founded in 2013 by James Johnston, Andy Kilner, and Alice Tyler, Piclo develops software solutions that make energy networks smarter, more flexible, and more sustainable.
Piclo Flex is an end-to-end marketplace that empowers system operators (SOs) to procure, dispatch, and settle local flexibility services from flexibility service providers (FSPs), such as electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.
The marketplace assists in balancing the grid during times of constraint, leading to more intelligent, flexible, and sustainable energy networks.
As of 2021, the flexibility contracts awarded on Piclo Flex totalled £56m with 16 GW of flex capacity registered and 739 MW of flexible capacity procured.
The company currently supports the business-as-usual flexibility procurement for major DSOs in the UK – UK Power Networks, SP Energy Networks, and Electricity North West, Portugal’s E-REDES, and Lithuania’s Energijos Skirstymo Operatorius (ESO).
The Investors
Future Energy Ventures is a venture capital firm that focuses on the energy and infrastructure sectors. The VC is a collaboration platform of E.ON, one of Europe’s largest operators of energy networks and energy-related infrastructure.
Jan Lozek, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Future Energy Ventures, says, “Given volatile supply and demand patterns and location mismatches between renewable generation sources and major energy consumption centres, flexibility is key to accelerating the energy transition and balancing the energy system.”
“We believe Piclo’s digital marketplace platform is central to that and estimate the company’s long-term cumulative impact potential by 2050 could reach 1.0 GtCO2e, which is c.a. 2.5% of the total global GHG emissions in 2021,” adds Lozek.
Based out of London, Clean Growth Fund invests in companies focused on driving clean growth in the low-carbon economy.
Beverley Gower-Jones, Managing Partner of Clean Growth Fund, says, “Piclo was Clean Growth Fund’s first investment in December 2020, and since then the team has gone from strength to strength, growing its business in the UK and the Continent and now working alongside National Grid to deliver a new flexibility marketplace in New York State.”
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