HYDROGRID makes waves with $8.5M Series A for optimised, automated hydropower

This week sees Austrian scale-up, HYDROGRID successfully close $8.5 million in Series-A funding to fuel a wave of international expansion. 

Founded in 2016, HYDROGRID offers automated IoT software for the optimal, real-time planning and dispatch of hydropower plants. 

It currently supports hydro operators in seven countries worldwide to fully digitalise their process from water to money. The company’s insight production planning combines machine learning algorithms for inflow and power price forecasting with intelligent optimisation across the short-, medium- and long-term horizon for run-of-river, pondage, storage, and cascade hydro-assets — all in one integrated and fully automated software package. 

This enables hydropower operators to react in real-time to weather events, minimise water losses and maximise their power market revenues fully automatedly while ensuring environmental and operational safety and compliance. 

Hydropower is the largest source of renewable energy worldwide. With 60 percent of all global renewable generation coming from hydro, it can provide reliable baseload energy. 

Globally, it is the largest source of grid-scale storage and will continue to provide roughly 500 times as much capacity as battery technology even past 2035.

New shareholders Inven Capital and Karma Ventures led the round, with contributions from existing investors CNB Capital and SET Ventures. 

According to Janice Goodenough, CEO of HYDROGRID:

“Despite the critical role hydropower has to play as a green battery to the grid, hydro is often viewed as the sleeping giant of the energy transition. 

This is because a significant part of its potential is currently underutilised due to a lack of digitalisation or due to complex regulation. And that’s what we aim to change.” 

Michal Mravec, Investment Director at Inven Capital, underscores this: 

“At Inven Capital, we believe hydropower is vital in the transition towards a zero-carbon economy.

HYDROGRID’s ability to proactively manage inflow forecasting, water management and environmental regulation and then combine it with optimal power trading, adds tremendous value to hydro power owners. We are excited to support the company on its global growth journey.”

According to Tommi Uhari, Partner at Karma Ventures:

“The outstanding level of talent and spirit of the HYDROGRID team is in my opinion the company’s greatest asset. It makes me confident that they will continue to execute against their ambitious growth plans.”

Lead image: HYDROPOWER. Photo: uncredited.