DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 16, 2024--
GridBeyond, the leading intelligent energy and smart grid platform provider for distributed energy resource management, has closed its €52M Series C financing round. The round was led by Alantra’s Energy Transition Fund, Klima.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240415760197/en/
The Series C round also included new investors Energy Impact Partners, Mirova, ABB, Constellation and Yokogawa Electric Corporation as well as investment from existing investor, Act Venture Capital.
Since its foundation in 2010, GridBeyond has been developing its AI platform to help businesses unlock the full potential of energy assets, ensuring the sustainability, resilience, and affordability of energy as the world moves towards a zero-carbon future.
GridBeyond’s technology unleashes the latent power within every connected asset, including utility-scale renewables generation, battery storage, and energy demand load. This bridges the gap between distributed energy resources and the requirements of the power grid, enabling stakeholders across the energy value chain, from generators and network operators to end users, to optimise energy use for price and carbon footprint.
The funding will be used to further evolve GridBeyond’s technology and demonstrate its leadership in Grid Edge Virtual Power Plant (VPP) worldwide. It will enable GridBeyond to build on its capability in optimising assets like demand response, storage and renewables and support grid operators and local utilities to maximise the use of flexible assets and low-carbon technologies rapidly integrating into the system through the electrification of heat and transportation.
Finally, it will facilitate GridBeyond’s growth into new international markets as regulatory environments and renewable penetration levels progress. It will also facilitate expansion of its US business and support delivery of its world leading Storage, EV (V2G) and DR offerings across US & other deregulated markets with high renewable penetration levels which is already well underway. This growth is driven by the increasing need for flexibility to achieve the zero-carbon future the company strives to deliver.
Michael Phelan, Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder of GridBeyond, commented:
“We are delighted to complete this transaction. This funding, together with the support of our new partners, will enable us to expand our product offering and strengthen our leadership position in this space.
“The newly completed financing round sets GridBeyond on the path to increase the reach of our intelligent energy platform and deliver world leading AI and powerful automation capabilities to smart grid and energy markets across the world. This supports our ambition to advance the transition of the global energy networks towards digitalisation, decarbonisation, and decentralisation. All while enhancing commercial and operational benefits for market participants through fast-acting automation and optimisation of flexible demand, storage and distributed generation.”
In 2023, GridBeyond expanded its team across all deregulated markets in the USA, acquired Veritone Business Energy, launched a suite of new products and doubled the size of its team globally. In addition, in the last three years the company has been increasing its annual revenue on average by 70% per year with a forecast of further similar growth in 2024.
Bastien Gambini, Managing Partner of Klima, added: “GridBeyond has established itself as a VPP leader across different countries, enabling stakeholders throughout the value chain to optimise energy. We are thrilled to support the company’s expansion and its additional services aimed at guiding customers on their path to achieving net zero-carbon.”
Marathon Capital, LLC, an independent investment bank focused on the clean economy, served as financial advisor to GridBeyond with Byrne Wallace as the company’s legal counsel and Mason Hayes & Curran (MHC) as the lead investor’s legal advisor.
About GridBeyond
GridBeyond is a smart energy company led by Michael Phelan and Richard O’Loughlin. By leveraging AI, we innovate and collaborate with our customers to create optimal value from energy generation, demand and storage to deliver a zero-carbon future. By bridging the gap between distributed energy resources and electricity markets, GridBeyond’s technology means every connected asset – whether utility-scale renewables generation, battery storage, or energy demand load – can be utilized to help maximize opportunities and enhance the grid. By intelligently dispatching flexibility into the right market, at the right time, asset owners and energy consumers unlock new revenues and savings, resilience, and management of price volatility, while supporting the transition to a Net Zero future.
For more information, visit www.gridbeyond.com.
About Alantra and Klima Energy Transition Fund
Alantra is an independent global mid-market financial services firm providing investment banking, asset management, and private capital services. In Alternative Asset Management, Alantra offers its clients unique access to a wide range of investment strategies in five highly specialized asset management classes (private equity, active funds, private debt, energy, and venture capital). As of 31 December 2023, assets under management from consolidated and strategic businesses stood at €15.6bn.
Alantra’s Energy Transition fund, Klima, is a 210M€ late-stage VC fund. Alongside Enagas, as cornerstone investor, Klima is backed by relevant investors such as the European Investment Fund, Axis ICO and CPPI. Klima partners with companies located in Europe and North America that have high growth potential in sectors such as smart power grids and markets, energy storage and technologies.
GridBeyond closes €52M Series C funding round to continue its platform evolution and invest in new & existing markets. (Graphic: Business Wire)
DEDHAM, Mass. (AP) — The trial of a Massachusetts woman who allegedly killed her Boston police officer boyfriend by intentionally driving her SUV into him opened Monday with prosecutors saying a cracked taillight and her own words to firefighters that she "hit him" will prove she is guilty.
Karen Read, 44, of Mansfield, faces several charges including second degree murder in the death of John O’Keefe, 46, in 2022. The 16-year police veteran was found unresponsive outside a home of a fellow Boston police officer and later was pronounced dead at a hospital. Read has pleaded not guilty and is free on bond.
“The defendant, Karen Read, is guilty of murder in the second degree, striking the victim, Mr. O’Keefe with her car, knocking him back onto the ground, striking his head on the ground, causing the bleeding in his brain and swelling, and then leaving him there for several hours in a blizzard," Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally told the jury.
As the case unfolded, the defense's strategy has been to portray a vast conspiracy involving a police coverup. It has earned Read a loyal band of supporters — who often can be found camped out at the courthouse — and has garnered the case national attention.
“Karen Read was framed,” Read's defense attorney David Yannetti told the jury. “Her car never struck John O'Keefe. She did not cause his death and that means somebody else did.”
The couple had been to two bars on a night in January 2022, prosecutors alleged, and were then headed to a party in nearby Canton. Read said she did not feel well and decided not to attend. Once at the home, O’Keefe got out of Read's vehicle, and while she made a three-point turn, she allegedly struck him then drove away, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors haven't said where they think she went after that. However, they allege she later became frantic after she said she couldn't reach O'Keefe. She returned to the site of the party where she and two friends found O’Keefe covered in snow. While on the scene, firefighters said she told them “I hit him, I hit him, I hit him.”
He was pronounced dead at a hospital. An autopsy concluded he died from head trauma and hypothermia.
Investigators found a cracked right rear tail light near where O'Keefe was found and scratches on her SUV. Prosecutors are also expected to present evidence of injuries suffered by O'Keefe consistent with him being hit by the car and strains in the couples relationship including a “20 minute screaming match” witnessed by O'Keefe's two adopted children they had while on vacation in Aruba.
The defense have spent months arguing in court that the case was marred by conflicts of interest and accused prosecutors of presenting false and deceptive evidence to the grand jury. In a motion to dismiss the case, the defense called the prosecution's case “predicated entirely on flimsy speculation and presumption.” A Superior Court judge denied the request.
On Monday, Yannetti argued that close relationships between investigators and those in the house resulted in authorities focusing solely on Reid, whom the defense described as a “convenient outsider.”
Yannetti also claimed investigators failed to consider the possibility that O'Keefe got into a fight at the party and was left for dead outside. While not offering evidence of who was responsible, they laid out of a series of missteps in the investigation — failing to investigate a history of animosity between O'Keefe and the family who owned the home nor searching the home for evidence of a struggle.
They also are expected to provide evidence that Read's taillight was damaged when she hit O'Keefe's car hours later at their home — not at the party — and dispute that the couple had a strained relationship. They got along well that night and had made plans for several trips in the months ahead.
“You will question the Commonwealth's theory of the case,” Yannetti said. “You will question the quality of the Commonwealth's evidence. You will question the veracity of the Commonwealth's witnesses and you will question their shoddy and biased investigation.”
In August, Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey criticized suggestions that state and local enforcement were orchestrating a cover up, saying there is no evidence to support O'Keefe was in the Canton home where the party took place nor was in a fight.
The idea that multiple police departments and his office would be involved in a “vast conspiracy” in this case is “a desperate attempt to reassign guilt.”
Such comments have done little to silence Read's supporters, dozens of whom dressed in pink for the first day of the trial.
Most days, a few dozen supporters — some carrying signs or wearing shirts reading “Free Karen Read” — can be seen standing near the courthouse. Many had no connection to Read, who worked in the financial industry and taught finance at Bentley University before this case.
Among her most ardent supporters is a confrontational blogger Aidan Timothy Kearney, known as “Turtleboy." He has been charged with harassing, threatening and intimidating witnesses in the case. For months, he has raised doubts about Read's guilt on his blog that has become a popular page for those who believe Read is innocent.
Friends and family of O’Keefe fear the focus on Read and the conspiracy theories are taking away from the fact a good man was killed.
The first witness in the trial was O'Keefe's brother, Paul, who described in harrowing detail having to rush to the hospital that morning, walking past Read who was repeatedly screaming “Is he alive?" and into a room where his body was covered partially with a white sheet.
“He was pretty banged up,” Paul O'Keefe told the jury, detailing how his brother had blood running down his mouth and nose and markings on his right arm. “What really stood out to me was the eyes. It was as if there were ping pong balls under his eyelids.”
FILE - Karen Read sits in court during jury selection for her murder trial at Norfolk County Superior Court, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. Read's trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 29. (David McGlynn//New York Post via AP, Pool,File)
FILE - Karen Read, of Mansfield, Mass., center, departs Norfolk Superior Court following a day of jury selection, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. Read's trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 29. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
FILE - This undated photograph provided by the Boston Police Department shows Officer John O'Keefe of Canton, Mass. O'Keefe was found dead outside the home of a fellow officer in January 2022, and his girlfriend, Karen Read, has been charged with his death. Read's trial is scheduled to begin Monday, April 29, 2024. (Boston Police Department via AP, File)
Assistant District Attorney Adam Lally gives his opening statement as the murder trial for Karen Read begins in Norfolk County Superior Court, Monday, April 29, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of backing her SUV into her Boston Police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, and leaving him to die in a blizzard in Canton, in 2022. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Judge Beverly J. Cannone addresses the jury before opening statements for the murder trial of Karen Read in Norfolk County Superior Court, Monday, Aapril 29, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of backing her SUV into her Boston Police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, and leaving him to die in a blizzard in Canton, in 2022. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
The facts of the case against Karen Read are read as the murder trial for Read begins in Norfolk County Superior Court, in front of Judge Beverly J. Cannone., Monday, April 29, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of backing her SUV into her Boston Police officer boyfriend, John O'Keefe, and leaving him to die in a blizzard in Canton, in 2022. (Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe via AP, Pool)
Karen Read talks with lawyer David Yannetti in court during jury selection at Norfolk County Superior Court, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (David McGlynn/New York Post via AP, Pool)
Karen Read departs Norfolk Superior Court following a day of jury selection, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Karen Read, center, departs Norfolk Superior Court following a day of jury selection, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
Karen Read sits in court during jury selection at Norfolk County Superior Court, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (David McGlynn/New York Post via AP, Pool)
Karen Read sits in court during jury selection at Norfolk County Superior Court, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (David McGlynn/New York Post via AP, Pool)
Karen Read talks with lawyers in court during jury selection at Norfolk County Superior Court, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read, 44, is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (David McGlynn/New York Post via AP, Pool)
Karen Read departs Norfolk Superior Court following a day of jury selection, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Dedham, Mass. Read is accused of running into her Boston police officer boyfriend with her SUV in the middle of a nor'easter and leaving him for dead after a night of heavy drinking. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
