Oct 16, 2006
Even as solar panels and micro-turbines sprout on rooftops across the country, an ability to measure how much power the new energy generators actually produce has proved elusive.
Now a company called Fat Spaniel Technologies Inc. has just closed $7 million in its first round of venture capital funding to bring a new monitoring and management technology to market that gauges exactly how much and how well new energy generators work.
The San Jose-based company raised approximately $3.5 million in initial capital from the Radnor, Pa.-based, energy-focused venture capital firm, Element Partners earlier this year. Today, the company said Element Partners contributed an additional $1.5 million and new investor Chrysalix Energy invested another $2 million to close the round, according to Fat Spaniel Chief Executive Officer, Chris Beekhuis.
"This particular capital is to help us expand our partnerships," Beekhuis said. Fat Spaniel relies on original equipment manufacturer relationships to bring its products to market. The company has 450 installations of its monitoring and management systems and plans to ship more than 2,000 systems by the end of next year, according to Beekhuis.
Market demand for distributed generation technologies, chiefly solar arrays, has soared in the past few years and new legislation enacted in California over the past year has only given another boost to the market. Several hundred kilowatts of solar power are expected to be generated in the next year, and as that power comes online, investors are looking for better ways to gauge the efficacy of the power generation systems, Beekhuis said.
That demand is creating a market for Fat Spaniel and other power monitoring and management technologies. Recently, Washington-based GridPoint Inc. announced a $21 million investment from venture backers led by Goldman Sachs for power management and smart grid solutions. Another power grid-scale energy monitoring and management company, East Hanover, N.J.-based Comverge Inc., has filed for a $90 million initial public offering.
Fat Spaniel provides three different types of services: diagnostics and maintenance of distributed generation systems; market data about the efficacy of systems; and finally billing data and reporting to regulatory agencies.
Founded by Beekhuis in 2003, Fat Spaniel has 29 employees. As a result of the latest investment from Chrysalix Energy, Greg Sullivan, a managing director with the firm, will join Element Partners managing director David Lincoln on the Fat Spaniel board of directors.
