One year after investment from Schneider Electric, AES, Coatue and Huck Capital, Uplight continues streak of innovation with new products and new acquisitions
(Alt Utility Dive Headline: Uplight Sets Record Pace for Innovation One Year After Investment from Schneider Electric, AES, Coatue and Huck Capital)
Boulder, Colo. — April 14, 2022 — One year after receiving a strategic investment from a consortium of investors, Uplight, the technology partner of energy providers transitioning to the clean energy ecosystem, has posted its most innovative year to date. A groundbreaking set of successful new products and continued M&A activity represent key milestones in Uplight’s continued creation of the connected customer energy experience and accelerate the company’s growth trajectory.
Uplight launched two new strategic products in 2021 — Connect and Plus. Uplight’s focus on helping utility customers achieve a more connected experience led to the launch of Connect, a suite of offerings focused on making utility customer energy data and insights more secure, actionable and accessible. Connect creates a Grid Edge Operating System (OS) that better connects utilities to customers and third-party products and services, enabling energy providers to orchestrate customers and ecosystem partners to meet decarbonization goals. In 2022, Uplight plans to add significant functionality to Connect by adding robust data and developer tools, as well as additional partner integrations.
Plus is a subscription energy solution that enables utilities to provide fixed, monthly bills to their customers, while also making it easy for customers to enroll in other beneficial energy and billing programs, such as demand response (DR), green energy and autopay. Uplight is the first utility technology partner in the world to deliver a subscription-based customer experience allowing customers to pay the same amount each month with no true up. One utility in the Midwest is seeing that customers on a flat bill and daily smart thermostat optimization are saving an average of 6% on their bills during the summer compared to a control group.
Along with launching new products, Uplight expanded its investment and leadership in the critical business customer segment with the acquisition of Agentis in October 2021. Business customers make up approximately 60% of load for utilities and are a critical force in driving decarbonization. Agentis, a leading provider of customer engagement outcomes for utility business customers, has a platform that turns AMI data into smarter energy usage for 3.5 million businesses. This acquisition gives Uplight an unparalleled solution to help utilities better understand, engage and drive business energy customers to action.
“We believe our investors have not only spurred Uplight’s growth and innovation that benefits our energy provider partners, but have also served as strategic partners that give us an edge over others in the industry,” said Adrian Tuck, CEO of Uplight. “We made tremendous progress in 2021, but 2022 looks to be an even more impactful year. It’s clear from our utility partners that they want to turn the dial up when it comes to creating a better journey for customers, and we believe Connect is the cornerstone of making that happen.”
To support the ongoing growth, Uplight added more than 150 new staff across all roles to its growing team in 2021 and early 2022. The new team additions include key leadership roles: Uplight’s first Chief Product Officer, Greg Gould; first Chief People Officer, Michelle Anastasi; first General Counsel, Lauren Romer; as well as Jeff Hoffman, Chief Financial Officer; Bryan Spear, Chief Customer Officer; Jesse Demmel, Chief Technology Officer; and David Schoenberg, Senior Vice President, Delivery and Operations.
About Uplight
Uplight is the technology partner for energy providers and the clean energy ecosystem. Uplight’s software solutions connect energy customers to the decarbonization goals of power providers while helping customers save energy and lower costs, creating a more sustainable future for all. Using the industry’s only comprehensive customer-centric technology suite and critical energy expertise across disciplines, Uplight is streamlining the complex transition to the clean energy ecosystem for more than 80 electric and gas utilities around the world. By empowering energy providers to achieve critical outcomes through data-driven customer experiences, delivering control at the grid edge, creating new revenue streams and optimizing existing load and assets, Uplight shares a mission with its clients to make energy more sustainable for every community. Uplight is a certified B Corporation. To learn more, visit us at www.uplight.com, find us on Twitter @Uplight or on LinkedIn at Linkedin.com/company/uplightenergy.