Utility industry's only Silicon Valley venture arm reports nearly 80% of portfolio companies have engaged with its parent company to upgrade the grid, improve operations and drive the next era of innovation

MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 19, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- National Grid Partners, the corporate venture capital and innovation arm of one of the world's largest utilities, has surpassed $500 million deployed since its 2018 founding to improve the aging power grid and accelerate the utility industry into the next era. The group also reported that nearly 80% of its portfolio companies have strategically engaged with National Grid's businesses units, validating its mission to bring startup innovation to utility scale.

"Utilities face a new era of operational challenges–from the electrification of everything and the integration of low-cost renewables to the widespread deployment of artificial intelligence," said Steve Smith, president of National Grid Partners and chief strategy and regulation officer at National Grid. "We've built National Grid Partners to not only fund the most promising startups addressing these challenges, but also to make a real impact on our business and across the industry. Moreover, our investments attract further momentum, with our $500 million having unlocked $3 billion in follow-on funding for our portfolio companies."

National Grid supplies power to more than 20 million people in New York and Massachusetts, serves as the electricity transmission provider to all of England and Wales, and owns and operates the U.K.'s largest electricity distribution network. The utility has directly engaged with more than 30 National Grid Partners portfolio companies, including:

• AiDash, which unites satellite data with artificial intelligence (AI) and helps utilities identify in real time hotspots that should be prioritized for hazardous tree removal. National Grid has seen outages drop by 30% in jurisdictions where AiDash has been deployed.
• LineVision, which provides real-time transmission line data to help utilities better assess how much electricity their lines can carry at any given time. This improved data enables more than 30% more energy to pass through existing infrastructure. The startup's technology was fully deployed across National Grid transmission lines in western New York this year and is now integrated in the utility's control room–the largest such deployment in the United States.
• Risilience, a climate intelligence platform that helps businesses assess climate risk and turn that data into actionable insights to speed net zero progress. The startup showed National Grid Electric Transmission how to save £3.5 million in operating expenses for its U.K. electric vehicle fleet while reducing scope one emissions by 57,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

National Grid Partners was founded to help utilities overcome traditional struggles to internalize innovation and more closely collaborate with startups. In a recent survey, just 26% of utility innovation leaders said they turned to startups for fresh thinking, relying instead on their own employees for ideas. Moreover, these executives reported that just one in four innovation projects in planning ever gets implemented (24%). The survey data was announced at the recent NextGrid Alliance Summit, hosted by National Grid Partners to bring together startups and leaders from more than 120 global utilities to foster collaboration and innovative solutions.

"The innovation companies National Grid Partners supports are essential to enable the energy transition," said John Pettigrew, CEO of National Grid Group. "By making collaboration an organizational priority and dedicating time and resources against our mission, we are demonstrating that startups and utilities can team to make a singular impact on how we do business. Building on this progress is essential to build the utility of the future."

Noting that National Grid has committed more than $75 billion for infrastructure projects to upgrade the grid, he added that startups in the National Grid Partners portfolio will be front and center in transforming the company into "a more resilient, dynamic utility that can double capacity by 2050."

Corporate venture firms are helping startups achieve tangible results in today's tough markets. According to a recent Silicon Valley Bank report, companies backed by corporate venture capital have a success rate double that of startups backed by purely financial VCs.

Where startups don't exist to address industry challenges, the National Grid Partners Innovation team develops prototypes and hands them off to National Grid business units to scale. Twenty such projects have been completed, including OceanBrain, a tool to monitor and protect subsea power and telecom cables that allow critical resources to flow between countries.

"National Grid Partners is focused on innovation everywhere, from dedicating internal teams that develop new technologies to supporting innovative startups and introducing them across National Grid and the NextGrid Alliance," noted Smith. "We are in a unique position between the startup world and one of the largest listed utilities to foster innovation at scale and bring new technologies to the grid faster."

About National Grid Partners
National Grid Partners is the venture investment and innovation arm of National Grid plc., one of the world's largest investor-owned energy companies. By providing corporate venture capital, business development counsel and direct integration with National Grid's innovation teams, National Grid Partners is accelerating the energy transition and helping new technologies reach critical scale faster. We also convene the NextGrid Alliance (), a network of senior innovation executives from more than 120 worldwide utility companies focused on harnessing the industry's latest technologies. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, National Grid Partners has offices in Boston, London, and New York. Visit ngpartners.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

SOURCE National Grid Partners