Participated · Seed · Oct 2023

heata operates a low-carbon cloud compute network aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of compute-heavy customers such as 3D animation and visualisation studios. The company was founded in 2017 by Chris Jordan and Michael Paisley as a British Gas innovation project to support people living in fuel poverty. It enables cloud customers to lower their compute-related emissions while directing support to households struggling with bills. heata plans to use newly raised capital to further develop its low carbon cloud compute network and expand the team with hires in sales, marketing, design and IT. British Gas retains a stake in the business, and the company serves commercial customers with heavy cloud compute requirements.

Led · Equity · May 2013

4energy builds technology aimed at improving energy efficiency in telecoms infrastructure and data centres. The company's core product focuses on reducing energy use in those facilities. British Gas has led a £7m investment round in 4energy. The utility plans to roll out 4energy's technology to its corporate customers. British Gas now holds a stake in 4energy. The article does not disclose revenue, user counts, or other operating metrics.

Participated · Series B · Jun 2012

Founded in 2001 and based in Mannheim, Germany, Power Plus Communications provides distribution network operators and utilities with broadband powerline communication systems for smart metering and smart grids. Its customers include leading European DNOs and utilities such as E.ON, WPD, EnBW, MVV Energie AG, Stadtwerke Düsseldorf, DEW21 (Dortmund) and Stadtwerke Ratingen. The company closed a €12m Series B funding round led by Climate Change Capital with participation from British Gas and Siemens Financial Services. It intends to use the funding to accelerate market growth in Germany, across Europe and in the Middle East. In conjunction with the funding, Dr Detlef Pohl of Siemens Financial Services and Mr Petter Allison of British Gas will join the company’s supervisory board.

Led · Equity · Oct 2010

AlertMe builds a Home Area Network (HAN) and cloud-based platform that provides two-way communication for real-time monitoring, control, automation and analytics. The platform lets consumers manage and control the home over the internet and via smartphones. AlertMe says its system can help users save roughly 15–20% on energy bills by making consumption visible and encouraging behavior change. The company has a strategic partnership with British Gas, which will deploy AlertMe products to its UK customers and roll out two million smart meters by 2012 under a notional £20m deal. AlertMe plans to use the new funding to expand its partner and channel program in the UK, Europe and the USA and to extend its platform. The startup recently closed a second funding round totaling £15 million, bringing in new strategic investment from British Gas alongside existing backers. AlertMe sells a home energy kit plus a subscription-based web service that retrofits hardware similar to smart meters so users can measure and track their home energy use online. The company launched the Swingometer, a simple visualization that updates every ten minutes and compares the past 24 hours of usage against expected behaviour. Swingometer includes regional comparisons via a heat map that links to discrete area-specific displays. AlertMe’s service also ties into Google Powermeter, which opened to UK users in October. The product is positioned around consumer energy conservation and real-time-ish monitoring for households. Financially, the company is venture-backed and has raised capital to support its product rollout and service expansion.