Energy Sharing Service, OhmConnect, Announces New Series B to Bring Total Funding to $15M

SAN FRANCISCO, April 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ — At OhmConnect, our goal is audacious — help people tackle and take action on one of the world’s most pressing challenges: climate change. That’s why we created the world’s first energy sharing service. Just like the sharing economy has proven to be an enormous economic force, we have empowered home energy customers to get paid for sharing their energy when other people on the grid need it most.

What does this look like in action? It’s as simple as receiving a text message, powering down for an hour, and using that spare hour to reconnect with your family. Families with smart thermostats and other smart home equipment can optionally automate their energy sharing to make the experience even easier. We combine enough shared energy from homes and apartments to be meaningful to energy markets and we get paid for it. Those payments are then sent right back to the pockets of OhmConnect users.

What has our community’s impact been? Our 300,000 energy sharers generate over 100 Megawatts, which is the equivalent of four peaker power plants. Over 2 million pounds of CO2 emissions have been prevented and $4M in payments have been passed along to our users.

To accelerate this success, the OhmConnect team is thrilled and humbled to announce that we have raised $8.5M in a Series B funding round, led by Mike Maples of Floodgate, along with Jennifer Fonstad of Aspect Ventures, Josh Cohen of City Light Capital, Dan Skaff and Kat Taylor of Radicle Impact, Jerry Yang & Jeff Chung of AME Cloud Ventures, Jim Babcock of Cthulhu Ventures, and Mark Pincus.

“Energy sharing has the potential to transform the quality and sustainability for how energy is delivered while making the experience far better for consumers. OhmConnect is combining the power of software and networks to address what we believe is a massive opportunity in one of the world’s most giant markets,” said Mike Maples of Floodgate.

Matt Duesterberg, our CEO, also sees a bright future for energy sharing, “OhmConnect introduces homeowners and apartment renters to the new energy economy in the simplest way possible — turning off a light switch. By saving energy during #OhmHours, not only can people take a simple and impactful action to combat climate change, but we put money in their pockets.”

What does the future hold exactly for OhmConnect? Using this total $15M in funding, our goal is to have 1 Gigawatt of shared energy by 2020 by expanding into new markets beyond California, including New York, Texas, and the rest of the country.  We are excited to continue growing our community and help the rest of the U.S. unlock their energy sharing potential.