Our Investment in Amperon

A new data intelligence company delivering mission critical products for grid-crucial energy companies.

Over the past ten years, something amazing has happened to many of the objects, devices, and infrastructure that surrounds us —much of it has gotten a lot “smarter.” A “smart” object in 2018 means different things to different people — it’s not just Internet connected and producing new sources of data, but it’s often autonomous — and it doesn’t just include consumer toys like Amazon’s Echo device, but also major industrial infrastructure. Recently, we’ve come to believe that one of the most important parts of the physical world that’s getting smarter is our energy grid, and that innovation in this area is critical to the human experience as we begin to address pressing challenges like climate change.

In their post announcing Amperon today, Abe discusses a few recent developments driving the evolution of our energy grid, including:

“…The recent onslaught of smart meter deployments, with 76M smart meters deployed today — due to reach 90M by 2020 (out of 150M total meters)…regional operators like PJM, CAISO, and MISO moving to comply with FERC Order 825 by transitioning from hourly settlements to 5-minute settlements…and the impact potential of battery-based energy storage and electric vehicles.”

And so as we (energy utilities, suppliers, and customers) collectively make this transition to the smart grid of the future, we believe a whole new stack of AI-powered products and services will be built for it. We think that this represents a significant opportunity for the right founders willing to tackle some really difficult data and infrastructure challenges, which is why we’re so psyched to be backing Sean and Abe. They combine unique experiences working in the energy markets with large scale data engineering, enabling them to build AI-driven solutions for utilities and suppliers, granting these important players unprecedented levels of insights, visibility, and control over the smart grid that we all use daily. If you’re interested in this important area of innovation, please let us know, team Amperon is hiring!