NRN (National Renewable Network), a top distributed energy platform in Australia, completed a $67.2 million Series A funding round—one of the country’s largest for climate tech. Backed by prominent investors and debt funds, NRN enables retailers like Alinta Energy to offer solar and battery systems to customers with no upfront costs, repayments, or maintenance fees, helping grow renewable portfolios as Virtual Power Plant plans.
Government incentives and rising interest in solar and batteries have fueled NRN’s rapid expansion—over 600% in two years, now managing $12 million in assets and nearly 10 MWh of battery capacity. With total funding above $85 million, NRN aims to deploy an additional 40 MWh of storage in the following year.
By removing financial barriers for households and partnering with energy retailers, NRN is accelerating its national rollout and strengthening industry connections. Their model helps stabilise the grid, lower prices, and deliver clean energy without large upfront investments, addressing market volatility caused by unmanaged rooftop solar installations across Australia.
KEY QUOTES:
“Millions of Australian homeowners want solar but the costs are prohibitive, and every energy retailer wants to scale up their solar energy generation. Our platform integrates tech, data, capital, compliance, and market access, to neatly solve the problem at both ends. For customers, it’s access to solar with no upfront fees. For energy retailers, NRN can instantly establish or scale distributed energy businesses without capital-intensive balance sheet burdens, while maintaining complete ownership of the customer experience. Our unique model is intentionally structured around empowering partners, never competing with them.”
Alan Hunter, CEO and Founder of NRN
“This Series A marks Investible’s third investment in NRN since leading their seed round in March 2024. This latest raise represents the largest investment from our fund to date, underscoring the conviction we’ve built in the team, the model, and the scale of the opportunity. In just over 18 months, NRN has grown its network by more than 505% by solving one of the toughest challenges in energy: making clean energy accessible and affordable for households. We’re thrilled to welcome our co-lead, Virescent, and other exceptional investors to the cap table. NRN is building both a company and a category with global potential, and we’re proud to be on the journey with them.”
Ben Lindsay, Investment Principal at Investible
“Virescent Ventures is proud to support NRN in its Series A. Alan and the NRN team have built a smart, scalable solution to one of the most pressing challenges facing Australia’s energy transition – grid stability. Australia’s transition to renewables has reached a critical moment – without the rapid deployment of battery storage and distributed generation technology, the energy transition will stall. NRN’s business model and technology can help address this by rapidly unlocking additional storage capacity, while democratising access to solar and battery technology. It will help more households benefit from renewable energy and battery technology without the upfront costs, while helping retailers and easing pressure on the grid. NRN presents a smart solution for consumers and the energy market, and a big step forward in decarbonizing the electricity grid.”
Blair Pritchard, Partner at Virescent Ventures
“Infradebt is pleased to provide a bespoke debt financing solution to support the rapid growth of the NRN platform. The build out of residential battery storage and VPPs will be a key next step in the energy transition.”
Chin-Lee Yu, Co-Founder at Infradebt
“NRN exemplifies the kind of business the Planet Fund is designed to support, where access to cost-effective capital is critical to achieving scale and reducing emissions. Its innovative business model, which requires both equity and non-dilutive debt to scale, aligns with our thesis of deploying flexible capital to accelerate climate solutions and help people save money. We’re particularly excited by NRN’s potential to drive meaningful household decarbonisation and contribute to lower energy emissions intensity.”
Amanda Goodman, Partner, Planet Fund
“We’re proud to have supported this pivotal transaction, which positions the company to scale its operations and accelerate its Series A equity raise. This debt raise highlights the depth of investor appetite for high-quality opportunities in the energy transition sector.”
Jason Watts, Managing Director, Neu Capital
“I’m thrilled to be backing NRN for the third time through Electrifi Ventures, as well as several times personally. It’s been amazing to watch their journey, and this raise gives them the runway to truly take off — accessing capital at an incredibly efficient rate and having successfully bridged the valley of death that so many startups face. I’m proud to be part of helping get businesses like this off the ground.”
Danin Kahn, Electrifi Ventures
