💸 Investment News 💸: Amber Electric

Getting to 100% renewable energy isn’t just a warm and fuzzy idea. It’s nothing short of essential in efforts to reach net zero and avoid the worst impacts of global warming. At Rubio, we see one of the missing links being that residential households have very few ways to participate in grid flexibility and storage, two of the most important enablers for renewable power to enter the grid. That’s why we decided to invest in Amber Electric.  

Smart energy retailer
Amber Electric is an Australian smart energy retailer that has developed state of the art technology to unlock energy savings for households and maximise use of renewables. Their X-factor is Smartshift, a platform that connects home batteries, EV chargers, and smart devices to the dynamic wholesale price of electricity throughout the day, automatically shifting consumption to times when renewables are flooding the grid with cheap, green power (and discharging batteries into the grid when renewables drop away and prices rise).

Global impact
The company was founded in 2019 by Daniel Adams (ex. Tesla, BCG, Make Poverty History) and Christopher Thompson (ex. BCG) who have combined experience across the energy sector, B2C software, and strategy consulting. After building world leading technology in Australia and growing to 30k customers, they have their sights set on global impact in the UK & Europe. Here, market tailwinds are particularly strong, with strong uptake of batteries and EVs, and a wave of major grids modernizing to allow companies like Amber to provide flexibility services.

UK & European growth
Rubio is backing Amber’s UK & European growth ambitions alongside Gentrack, a public billing software company servicing energy utilities. Under the strategic partnership, Amber and Gentrack will bundle their offers for utilities to compete with breakout energy tech giant, Octopus Energy Group. Other investors in Amber include Breakthrough Victoria, Commonwealth Bank,NRMA, Alberts, Square Peg and Main Sequence.

Want to find out more about Amber? Check out their portfolio page: https://www.rubio.vc/portfolio/amber-electric/