Power grid digital twin startup charges up on $45 million Series C

Energy sector digital twin startup Neara has raised $45 million in a Series C as international investors grab a slice of the AI-powered platform.

The round was led by Swedish private equity firm EQT and Swiss infrastructure business Partners Group. Existing backers Square Peg, Skip Capital and Dutch VC Prosus Ventures also chipped in. Skip, run by Kim Jackson, wife of Atlassian’s Scott Farquhar, has now backed Neara across four rounds.

It’s 12 months since Neara pocketed $15.25 million in Series B extension as it turned its attentions to global expansion. Earlier this month, the startup signed a deal with NYSE-listed US energy provided CenterPoint to deploy its AI capabilities around the Houston, Texas, service area for engineering simulations and analytics.

The capital will be deployed towards further expansion in the US and and Europe

Local clients include AusGrid, Essential Energy, Endeavour Energy, South Australia Power Networks and Transgrid, who use the platform to optimise their networks across a broad spectrum of critical use cases, as well as for identifying untapped network capacity.

Software engineer Daniel Danilatos founded Neara in 2016. It uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to create a dynamic ‘digital twin’ – a virtual model of an infrastructure network. The software can be used to design or redesign parts of the network, analyse potential risks, and manage physical assets with a sophisticated physics and engineering engine.

Those digital models enable utilities to prepare for and better withstand weather emergencies, as well as enabling the complex engineering analysis required to optimise existing networks and integrate renewables far more efficiently and effectively.

Neara previously raised a $7.25 million Series A in 2021, and then $20 million in a Series B in May 2022, subsequently expanding into the UK and US markets.

The company has also been engaged in Southern California, where power infrastructure was blamed for catastrophic bushfires in recent years.

Neara was a finalist in the Startup of the Year category of the 2023 Startup Daily Best in Tech Awards. The category winner, Wollongong-based electrolyser startup Hysata, went on to raise $172 million in a Series B earlier this year for its low-cost green hydrogen production plant.