Mercom Capital Group, llc, a global clean energy communications and consulting firm, released its report on funding and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity for the Smart Grid, Battery/Storage and Energy Efficiency sectors for the third quarter of 2015.
Venture capital (VC) funding (including private equity and corporate venture capital) for Smart Grid companies came to $81 million in 12 deals in Q3 2015, compared to $104 million in 18 deals in Q2 2015. Year-to-date (YTD), Smart Grid companies have now raised $370 million compared to $325 million raised in the same period in 2014.
Among the Top VC funded Smart Grid companies in Q3 2015, the company that raised the largest amount was PubNub, a provider of a data stream network that powers real-time apps for home automation, which raised $20 million from Sapphire Ventures, Relay Ventures and Scale Venture Partners. Second in line was SemaConnect, a residential and commercial electric vehicle charging solutions provider, which raised $15 million in financing from Pear Tree Partners. LifeSmart, a provider of wireless smart home automation products, raised $9.4 million from Haier SAIF and Foxconn; closely followed by Bastille, a security company that detects and mitigates threats from the Internet of Things (IoT) including utilities, which raised $9 million from Bessemer Venture Partners and other angel investors. Rounding off the Top 5 was Link Labs, a provider of low-power, wide area network (LPWAN) technologies for industrial sensing and control, building management, smart home automation and IoT, which raised $5.7 million from TCP Venture Capital, Maryland Venture Fund, Blu Venture investors, Inflection Point Partners and individual investors.
There were 22 investors participating in smart grid VC funding rounds in Q3 2015. Within Smart Grid, Smart Grid Communication companies raised the most funding followed by Smart Charging for Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEV) and Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) companies.
There was one Smart Grid M&A transaction in Q3 2015 for $5.1 billion. In one of the largest Smart Grid M&A transactions to date, Honeywell acquired the Elster Division of Melrose Industries, a provider of gas, water and electricity smart meters, and software and data analytics solutions, for $5.1 billion.
