Camus Energy has surpassed $25 million in Series A funding after closing its $10 million extension. The round was co-led by climate firm Congruent Ventures and marketplace investor Wave Capital, with participation from Align Impact, Remarkable Ventures Climate fund (RVC), and Groundswell Ventures, alongside Congruent and Wave’s Limited Partners.
Camus is accelerating society-wide electrification through its grid orchestration platform, which enables electric utility operators and planners to harness the latent flexibility of electrified devices including electric vehicles, batteries, solar inverters, and smart thermostats. These devices will actively manage distribution grid capacity, avoiding expensive equipment upgrades and improving reliability.
Leading utilities, such as Duquesne Light Company, Vermont Electric Cooperative, Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, and La Plata Electric Association, use Camus’ software platform to manage the impacts of electrification and increase the amount of new demand that can be reliably and sustainably served with existing infrastructure.
The company’s software platform serves as a hub for modern utility operations and planning, providing real-time visibility, day-ahead forecasting, grid-aware control of local energy resources, and distribution system planning insights all in one.
Camus leverages its team’s unique experience designing and scaling distributed computing systems at Google, Amazon, and Meta to help utilities analyze billions of data points and embrace the shift from model-reliant to data-driven grid management. Laying the foundation for utilities to accommodate and embrace local energy resources, Camus’ investors remain eager to help the company build on its momentum.
“Since the Camus platform acts as the glue to usher in the era of 100% electrification, this is an investment in the larger clean energy transition,” said Abe Yokell, managing partner and co-founder of Congruent Ventures. “Camus’s software unlocks the full potential of both renewable power supply and growing electricity demand for the thousands of utilities managing the momentous challenge of expanding and decarbonizing the grid. This investment will benefit not only Camus and its partners, but utility end customers who expect reliable, clean, and affordable power. It’s a no-regrets, market-leading technology that can be deployed immediately to transform how utilities monitor and manage their grids.”
Since its most recent funding announcement in mid-2021, Camus has increased its annual recurring revenue by 500%, expanded its customer base to utilities serving 2.9 million end consumers across nine states, and doubled its headcount. Camus’ customer portfolio now includes investor-owned utilities, rural electric cooperatives, generation and transmission operators, and community choice aggregators.
“This round of funding couldn’t have come at a better time, with federal initiatives and consumer demand putting tremendous pressure on the energy transition within the power sector,” said Astrid Atkinson, CEO and co-founder of Camus. “Utilities are actively seeking out grid orchestration capabilities to integrate new sources of generation and demand. It’s our job to make that transition as smooth and efficient as possible. This investment allows us to continue to expand our industry-leading collaborations with forward-thinking utilities, delivering a repeatable, data-driven approach to help utilities adapt to the challenges and opportunities within their communities.”
Camus will leverage this investment to expand its customer base, delivering the benefits of orchestration to new communities, continuing to invest in product R&D, and providing utilities with the awareness, insights, and control needed to manage a fast-evolving grid. The investment will also enable Camus to further develop its growing partner ecosystem, which will play an increasingly crucial role in empowering utilities to quickly and reliably harness local energy resources for cost savings and enhanced reliability.
About the Grid Orchestration market:
- The US has nearly 3,000 electric utilities, including 168 investor-owned, 812 cooperatives and 1,958 municipally-owned.
- Only 12% of utilities have fully implemented a Distributed Energy Resource Management System (DERMS), but 28% have implementation in progress, and 35% have proposals approved or under consideration.
- Deploying 80-160 gigawatts of virtual power plants (VPPs) by 2030 could save $10B in annual grid costs, directing spending back to consumers.
- Orchestration of devices — like EV charging — could save customers over $150 per year by 2030.
- Between 2011 and 2021, weather-related power outages in the U.S. increased by 78%.
- VPPs could save U.S. utilities $15 to $35 billion in capacity investment over 10 years.
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