Dive Brief:
- On Monday, smart grid startup Varentec announced it had received $8 million in Series B funding from Bill Gates and Khosla Ventures.
- Varentec's "Edge of Network Grid Optimization" (ENGO) solution combines a grid monitoring platform with the capability to control and change voltage directly at a system's weak points.
- The investment will help Varentec market its solution to electric utilities.
Dive Insight:
“It’s crazy how little we’re funding energy,” Gates told an audience at the ARPA-E conference in 2012, according to GigaOM. Gates acknowledged the higher failure rate for energy startups but posited that's exactly why we "literally need thousands of companies to try this." Bill Gates' investments in startups like Varentec are part of his strategy to jumpstart a so-called energy revolution.