A Vancouver greentech company specializing in optimizing wind and solar power across the globe is now in the midst of optimizing its own coffers.
Clir Renewables Inc. announced Tuesday the close of a $27-million Series B round led by Longbow Capital Inc. and ArcTern Ventures. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, BDC Capital, Active Impact Investments and Tokio Marine HCC also participated.
Clir is best known for its AI-driven monitoring and optimization platform targeting wind and solar power assets in 11 countries. The company said its customers collectively own more than 10% of installed wind and solar capacity across the globe.
The new capital will be going towards the development of smart products and tapping data to better evaluate technical and financial risk.
Last September, Clir received $1.5 million from B.C.'s Innovation Clean Energy fund to help it develop its windfarm software.
The government funding came at a time when the company was expanding into the realm of solar power, having rolled out an analogous platform for solar assets in June 2020.
“When you have a better technical understanding of your asset, you’ve got a higher certainty of the production going forward and that allows you to borrow more money and get better financial returns on the asset,” CEO Gareth Brown told BIV in July 2020.
“When the crash happened in 2008, all of the governments invested in green tech because of the threat of climate change. So the fundamentals of our current client base – these solar panels, these wind farms – are not being taken down. They’re still going to have the same challenges and opportunities on them. But once the recovery starts kicking in, we’re going to see larger investment and stimulus to get a green grid.”
The company said the close of the Series B would also help it expand into Latin America, Africa and Asia, as well as accelerate growth within North America and Europe.
