Innogy, Aqton, HTGF invest in Kiwigrid

Alice Murray
20 June 2013

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Innogy Venture Capital and Aqton, alongside existing investor High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), have jointly invested in energy management start-up Kiwigrid.

Innogy believes Kiwigrid's technology will benefit from new energy developments including the realisation of virtual power plants, smart metering services and domestic charging of electric vehicles.

According to Kiwigrid's CEO Carsten Bether, the company already works with several well-known manufacturers and energy companies that use the technology to promote their value-added services.

The fresh capital will enable the commercial roll-out of the platform and increase access to networks and customers to support the company's growth.

Previous funding
HTGF first invested in the company in 2011.

Company
Based in Dresden, Germany, Kiwigrid has developed a control platform for energy management, which enables integration across a range of devices for generation, storage and consumption of energy into distribution grids.

The idea was first developed in 2007 when the company's founders were all building their own homes. The founders were unimpressed by the lack of energy efficiency solutions available for monitoring and analysing the usage of power, gas, water and heating. The idea of an internet-based platform was developed to measure energy flow and control appliances remotely, with a clear aim of providing cost-saving and ease of installation benefits.

The platform connects producers, consumers and storage facilities to support all major power plants. The technology aims to make energy transparent by showing all energy flows and recording information by day, month and year to calculate kilowatt per hour and cost. Kiwigrid also offers a rechargeable energy app to optimise energy usage with a view to saving its customers money.

As well as it hardware and software solutions, the platform also runs a cloud database. This allows end-users, installers, plant manufacturer or energy utility companies to create, monitor and optimise distributed energy systems on the platform.

People
Carsten Bether is Kiwigrid's chief executive. Frank Starmann is managing director of Innogy. Romy Schnelle, senior investment manager at HTGF, also worked on the deal.