Wollongong-based energy technology company Gridsight has raised $36 million in a Series B funding round as it prepares to accelerate its expansion into the lucrative US market.
The AI-powered company provides software that helps electricity utilities see how much capacity is available across existing networks, allowing them to connect rising demand from data centres, electric vehicles and renewable energy without immediately having to build more infrastructure.
Insight Partners, the New York software-focused venture capital giant, led the funding with support of others, including Sydney’s Airtree Ventures which led the $7.5m Series A round.
The company has already partnered with leading US providers like Xcel Energy, proving that technology built in the Illawarra can lead the global transition toward smart, efficient grids.
Gridsight co-founder and CEO Brendan Banfield emphasised that the transition uses existing infrastructure in a smarter manner rather than opting for the slower, more costly route of additional construction.
“Our goal at Gridsight is to use data and intelligence to ensure energy is an enabler for economic and technological progress, not its limiting factor,” Banfield said. “Our platform helps utilities quantify that capacity, connect customers faster and direct investment to the pockets of the grid that maximise its impact.”
The CEO of Endeavour Energy, one of 12 Australian providers already working with Gridsight, was frank in his assessment of Gridsight on its management of rooftop solar assets in the AFR: “We’ve doubled customers’ solar export capacity within our existing poles and wires,” Danny Cooper said.
Banfield also admitted in a LinkedIn post this had been a long-term passion: “I have been obsessed with this problem for over a decade, from working within a utility to undertaking a PhD to founding Gridsight. The data and technology to solve these challenges exist.”
Banfield studied electrical engineering at the University of Wollongong from 2012, and his exposure to utilities sparked an interest in renewable integration. That continued at the UOW’s Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, where he spearheaded the acclaimed Desert Rose Solar Decathlon project. It asked a version of the same question that would later define Gridsight: how do you let solar, batteries and EVs into people’s homes without breaking the grid?
From there a commercial reality evolved in 2020. Alongside co-founders Kurt Walkom and Hugh Chan, Banfield secured the company’s inaugural pilot agreement on Christmas Eve of that year. Following their full-time commitment in 2021, the trio refined their strategy through iAccelerate’s intensive Activate program, marking the beginning of their rise from regional startup to global energy innovator.
Every cent of support received by The Pulse Illawarra is reinvested in our journalism. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber. Now is the time to get on board. Your investment will directly fund quality local journalism.