Retail energy provider Branch Energy announced it had raised $10.8 million in an oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Prelude Ventures (a climate-focused venture capital firm) and Zero Infinity Partners (an infra-tech investor).
Branch Energy is a vertically integrated power provider that balances the grid and offers businesses long-term energy stability through demand management software and advanced on-site battery storage systems.
This approach enables Branch Energy to provide customers with 100% clean energy at lower costs than its competitors while helping to avoid blackouts. The new financing will accelerate the development of Branch Energy’s battery management platform and build out its field services infrastructure.
Branch Energy has identified Texas as its first market due to the stress on the state’s grid. Extreme weather events such as Hurricane Beryl are becoming more frequent, and when combined with accelerating extreme heat, they put significant strain on the grid.
Texas experiences thousands of outages every year, and those who live there need reliable and affordable power that is more responsive to real-time conditions and grid-connected devices. Branch Energy offers electricity from 100% renewable sources, supporting local wind and solar projects, and, through its no-cost battery storage systems, enabling customers to manage demand on the grid more flexibly.
Since launching in 2021, Branch Energy signed up thousands of customers for 100% clean energy solutions. And during that time, Branch Energy has built the capacity and infrastructure to serve those customers affordably. And the cost to pull electricity from the grid is cheapest in the morning when Branch pulls most of its energy.
When electricity becomes more expensive later in the day, Branch Energy discharges the batteries to keep costs low for its users. And Branch Energy can reduce its customers’ energy bills by 5% to 10%, translating to tens of thousands of dollars of savings per year for commercial users.
KEY QUOTES:
“Our century-old grid design is not equipped for the complexity of today’s energy needs. Optimizing distributed energy assets in real-time will play an increasingly important role in managing the grid. We built Branch from the ground up as a technology company, allowing us to deliver value to customers in this new era of distributed energy by reducing costs while improving reliability. We are thrilled to receive this funding from Prelude Ventures and Zero Infinity Partners to help us accelerate the delivery of reliable, green, and affordable power to customers.”
- Alex Ince-Cushman, Branch Energy Co-Founder and CEO
“The power grid, especially in Texas, requires distributed generation and flexible loads as basic economics drives deployment of more renewable resources. Across the country, we are experiencing a major shift toward a decentralized and decarbonized grid. Branch Energy is bringing value to its customers through deployment of intelligent storage that lowers costs and improves reliability.”
- Tim Woodward, Managing Partner at Prelude Ventures
