Trilliant Inc., a provider of smart grid solutions, has secured on Thursday USD106 million from a consortium of leading industry and financial companies to support its global expansion.
The funding round coordinated by Deutsche Bank was led by renowned financial investors VantagePoint Venture Partners and Investor Growth Capital, the wholly-owned venture subsidiary of Investor A.B. of Sweden. New investors included ABB Group and General Electric, while existing investors MissionPoint Capital Partners and Zouk Ventures also joined.
Trilliant will use the proceeds from the financing round to foster growth in North America and overseas.
Currently, the company provides smart grid communication solutions to over 200 utilities around the world. One of its customers, Hydro One of Ontario, Canada, deployed Trilliant's smart communications to more than 1.1 million customers to aid in the largest operating time-of-use billing program in the world.
"The global smart grid market represents a transformation of how utilities and consumers interact with energy supply and demand," said Stephan Dolezalek, head of the CleanTech Practice at VantagePoint Venture Partners.
"Through real-time knowledge and information sharing, a smarter grid will empower consumers to manage energy usage and costs, optimize the integration of cleaner energy sources and drive increased energy efficiencies," explained Luke Clemente, general manager of metering and sensing of the digital energy business of G.E.(NYSE:GE).
Trilliant's latest funding round coincides with the launch of G.E.'s ecomagination challenge, an initiative that aims to spur groundbreaking concepts for smart grid technologies. The challenge calls on inventors, entrepreneurs and startups to submit their innovative ideas for a smarter grid and pocket a hefty investment from a USD200 million fund.
California-based Trilliant Inc. is a leading provider of smart grid technologies and energy management systems, including advanced utility wireless data collection for residential and commercial customers, time-of-use billing and critical peak pricing initiatives.
The company's multi-tier architecture connects utility distribution, metering and consumer energy management devices, making it the industry's fully integrated end-to-end smart grid solution.
Source: www.ecostocks.com
