21 Dec 2017 MANCHESTER, UK — SteamaCo, a market leading technology company focused on enabling energy access in frontier markets, today announced its $2.9 million Series A equity financing. The investment supports the company to further develop its universal smart meter platform for utility customers in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Shell led the investment round, with participation from existing investors: GReeN investor group and Ashden Trust.
The Series A financing builds on SteamaCo’s early work as a global leader in frontier market energy automation. The company, named on 2017’s Global Cleantech 100 “Ones to Watch”, remotely operates hundreds of distributed energy assets across Africa for some of the world’s most intrepid energy businesses - mini grid operators, off-grid retailers, and grid-edge solar providers - enabling modern energy for tens of thousands of previously unconnected consumers.
“SteamaCo is an important investment for Shell’s energy access portfolio. We believe their competitive, high functionality offering has disruptive potential for decentralized energy systems,” said Brian Davis, Vice President, Integrated Energy Solutions for New Energies at Shell. “We like SteamaCo’s flexible approach, impressive operational capability and technical expertise.”
Harrison Leaf, CEO and Co-Founder at SteamaCo said, “Shell’s support brings within reach significant untapped opportunities in our core markets. We’re investing in the enabling technologies required to connect 1.2bn new consumers with affordable, clean and abundant energy. This year we achieved world leading results with our load shifting, on-bill appliance financing and tariff optimisation services, and we continue our data work to understand and serve consumers better. Beyond the financial investment, we’re thrilled to have access to Shell’s global footprint and supply chain expertise as we continue to scale across borders and industries.”
SteamaCo was advised by Clermount, a financial advisory boutique, and Pannone Corporate LLP.
ABOUT STEAMACO
The utility of the future powers the world’s largest unserved market - 1.2bn unconnected people. Yet standing between the utility and the consumer are many miles of tough landscape, unreliable infrastructure and a lack of data. Founded in Kenya in 2012, SteamaCo enables its customers to sell energy anywhere on the planet. Forged in the most exacting technical environments, its universal smart meter automates any distributed energy asset, even in low- or no-connectivity locations, for the price of a classic meter.
SteamaCo is headquartered at Manchester Science Park, one of the UK’s leading science and technology campuses, with offices in Kenya.
ABOUT SHELL TECHNOLOGY VENTURES
Shell Technology Ventures B.V. is the corporate venture capital arm of Royal Dutch Shell plc (“Shell”). It supports Shell’s New Energies business which was created in 2016. New Energies focuses on two main areas: new fuels for transport, such as advanced biofuels and hydrogen; and power, which includes low- carbon sources such as wind and solar, as well as natural gas. Within the power portfolio, Shell is also actively pursuing investments in scalable commercial businesses that expand energy access to communities who currently have no energy at all or unreliable supply.