The AI energy tech firm from Vienna, enspired, has just landed a funding boost of €7.5 million, adding to its mission to solve a key challenge in the energy transition – making power grids more flexible.
The funding round, co-led by Emerald Technology Ventures and 360 Capital – two leading venture capital firms investing in technology that support the energy transition – will further accelerate the company’s expansion across Europe just 18 months after its inception. This is an exciting funding boost for the company that was part of our promising Vienna-based startups to watch in 2021.
Founded in 2020 by Juergen Mayerhofer (CEO), Wolfgang Eichberger (CTO) and Mario Schmoltzi (CCO), enspired is on a mission to enable a full transition to clean energy by providing power grids with much-needed flexibility.
With its AI-based trading services, enspired commercially optimizes power generation, storage, and consumption assets on so-called “spot markets” – short-term power exchanges that help to balance supply and demand.
CEO, Juergen Mayerhofer, explained the concept: “Building new wind and solar parks is only one part of the energy transition equation. Power grids need to be balanced between generation and consumption at all times, and the increasing share of renewables leads to generation that fluctuates with weather and can rarely be predicted in advance with great accuracy. To prevent blackouts, deviations in generation and consumption can be traded on power exchanges, sparing the grid operator from having to take last-minute action.”
With increased concern about energy consumption and the much-needed move to renewable resources, spot markets have seen skyrocketing growth over the last few years. For new players in the industry, this can bring about some challenges – namely finding trading talent and 24/7 shift setup. This can result in newcomers being unable to bring their flexibility to short term energy exchanges.
Enspired’s Trading-as-a-Service platform eliminates these entry barriers and also promises to be the most profitable way for its clients to trade flexibility.
Juergen Mayerhofer: “At enspired, all trades get executed in a fully automated fashion using advanced AI-based algorithms that outperform the market. We’re leveraging all available data, taking and executing trading decisions in milliseconds to monetize our clients’ flexibility to the fullest while supporting the grid.”
The startup has already sparked interest from markets across Europe and is offering a promising solution to challenges around the green energy transition.
On the back of COP26, growing awareness of energy consumption, and the fears of a European energy crisis, enspired is making an important and pertinent contribution to the development of a more sustainable energy market, whilst also delivering substantial value to clients and society as a whole.
