SetSquared Bath-affiliate Verv has secured backing from investors including Centrica as it continues the roll-out of its smart energy hub and peer-to-peer trading platform for renewable electricity.
Verv, a UK-based smart energy consumption technology developer and affiliate of the university-backed SetSquared Bath incubator, has received more than £6.5m ($8.3m) in a series A round led by a $6.4m commitment from environment-focused venture fund Earthworm.
The round also included EU-backed sustainability accelerator InnoEnergy and energy utility operator Centrica.
Founded in 2015 and operating under the trading name Green Running, Verv runs a renewable energy trading platform that exploits machine learning, peer-to-peer blockchain and crypto tokens to reward households for exchanging excess energy produced from their solar panels.
The platform uses a smart hub provided to the customer that also displays detailed information on household energy usage and spending habits.
Verv will put the capital into its expansion plans, targeting markets across Europe, Asia and the Middle East. The company will extend pilots of its peer-to-peer trading platform and is preparing for its commercial release in new markets, as well as an upgraded iteration of the smart hub product.
Verv has now raised $12.8m in capital altogether, it said, including $2.4m in convertible debt from gas supplier Centrica’s impact investment fund, Ignite, exchanged for shares in the series A round.
Ignite initially invested $1m in early 2016, however dates for its subsequent contributions could not be ascertained.
Verv then received approximately $1.6m in a 2017 equity crowdfunding campaign through the Crowdcube platform. It returned to Crowdcube in November last year to open a round that has so far raised $980,000.
SetSquared Bath is part of the SetSquared academic enterprise partnership between the universities of Bath, Bristol, Southampton, Surrey and Exeter.
