We are aware of the huge impact that the Smart Energy sector is having on the economy, but are its companies being active in the process of corporate finance? We answer this question for you.
We will analyse the operations of sale of companies that have emerged in recent years in this sector, looking at the amounts involved, the companies that have invested and the reasons why they have executed these operations.
In addition, we present a very recent one financing round received by Portugal's Omniflow.
The first operation to be analysed is that of EKZ Renewablesan investment firm dedicated to the renewable energies it acquired Smartenergy 1704. On 20 December 2018, the sale of Smartenergy was confirmed for EUR 10.82 million.
EKZ Renewables is a investment arm main of Elektrizitätswerke Des Kantons Zürich (EKZ). It invests mainly in renewable energy plants with a focus on wind power (onshore), concentrated solar thermal power plants and photovoltaics. EKZ Renewables was founded in May 2011 and is headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. This is the company's third acquisition of a Smart Energy wind farm.
Smartenergy 1704 is a company dedicated to energy production, land-use studies, environmental planning, research, development and consultancy, and project development in the energy sector, among others. It is located in Lisbon and is the sole shareholder of Goldiport Solar.
Goldiport Solar is the owner of the "Cotovio Project", a photovoltaic project located in the Algarve region that will be connected to the national utility grid at the Portimão substation, with a capacity of 48.9 MWp.
Fundada en 2002, Silver Spring Networks ofrece la plataforma “Smart Energy Platform”, que permite a las empresas de servicios públicos improving energy efficiency, improving services and reducing costs.
On 18 September 2017 it was announced the sale of the California-based company to Itronwhich was finally completed on 5 January of the following year. The transaction amounts moved up to USD 830 million.
Itron es una compañía de tecnología y servicios dedicada al uso de recursos de energía y agua. Ofrecen soluciones integrales que miden, gestionan y analizan la energía y el agua con una amplia cartera de productos: medición de energía eléctrica, gas, agua y energía térmica y tecnología de control; sistemas de comunicaciones; software; así como servicios gestionados y de consultoría.
With this acquisition, Itron strengthened its ability to offer a broader set of solutions, increasing the pace of growth and innovation in the smart cities and industrial IoT markets and offering customers greater choice and flexibility in deploying technology to improve their operations and services.
"The addition of Silver Spring Networks comes at a time when industry dynamics are changing: utilities and cities are looking to invest in IoT and connectivity to modernise infrastructure, reduce operating expenses, improve services and create new revenue opportunities," said Philip Mezey, CEO of Itron.
El 09 de enero de 2019 la empresa portuguesa Omniflow, que opera en el sector de energía inteligente, recibió una 2 million capital injection of the HCapital New Ideas Fund.
Omniflow, founded in 2011 in Oporto, develops and manufactures an intelligent platform that provides a efficient management of solar and wind energywhich in turn is stored in batteries for commercial purposes, telecommunications, wifi systems and street lighting.
HCapital New Ideas Fund, por su parte, es un fondo de capital de riesgo portugués centrado en las áreas de energía, movilidad y territorios inteligentes gestionados por HCapital Partners.
This injection will allow the company to strengthen its internationalisation strategy and focus on the growth of its management team in the areas of software development, commercial and Internet of Things (IoT).
"This new round will allow us to have the additional financial support to enable us to be a little faster in implementing our global strategy, where we already we have approximately 1,000 units installed in more than 20 countries"said Omniflow CEO Pedro Ruão.
Finally, we talked about the sale of Enlighted, a company that provides smart energy solutions for commercial buildingsto Siemens Building Technologies.
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