Norwegian utility Equinor has joined the board of energy tech firm Reactive Technologies as a strategic investor.
Reactive, which develops analytics tools for network operators as well as a power purchase optimisation service for renewables, instigated a Series C funding round last October which saw the likes of Ingenious, Octopus and RES participate in a round which raised an undisclosed eight-digit sum.
Today the firm described Equinor’s participation as the latest development in that funding round as a “further validation” of its growth potential.
Marc Borrett, chief executive and co-founder at Reactive Technologies, said the additional funds would allow the firm to ramp up its headcount of energy engineers and expand its global reach.
Reactive’s technologies are based around cloud-based communications that claim to offer network operators with enhanced analytics, allowing them to integrate more renewables onto the grid.
Equinor’s participation meanwhile is borne out of the company’s Energy Ventures arm, a US$200 million venture capital fund launched in February 2016 with the specific aim of targeting innovative growth companies in the low carbon energy sector.
Gareth Burns, VP at Equinor and managing director at Equinor Energy Ventures, said that his company had been attracted by the scalability of Reactive’s offering.
“Reactive has developed a unique technology to monitor the power grid using real time analytics which combined with the power trading team creates the potential to accelerate the energy transition,” he said.
