Heila Technologies to Expand Distributed Grid Intelligence with Heila EDGE®, a Modular Energy Platform
Announces $2.5 Million Equity Investment from Table Rock Infrastructure Partners, Massachusetts Clean Energy Center and Additional Private Investors
For Immediate Release
October 21, 2020
SOMERVILLE, Massachusetts – Heila Technologies, Inc. (Heila) announced today that it has raised $2.5 million in seed funding for its Heila EDGE® platform, an end-to-end solution to integrate, operate and optimize groups of distributed energy resources (DER). Table Rock Infrastructure Partners, an equity firm focused on helping municipalities with critical infrastructure projects, is the lead investor. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the Commonwealth’s clean energy sector, together with individuals, are supporting investors. The funding round will remain open for a short period of time for additional strategic investors.
Recent reports estimate that the global distributed energy industry is expected to reach $650 billion by 2028. The growth comes as users recognize that the grid will need to be more resilient to climate and cyber threats and be able to integrate clean energy and storage, all while providing reliable and cost-competitive power. This $2.5 million investment will allow Heila to become a key player in the distributed energy space by building on its existing modular controls and optimization product and developing partnerships with strategic equipment vendors, project developers and utilities.
“Distributed energy resources can play a critical role in improving how we generate, store, and manage energy at scale. Our mission at Heila is to support that promise by transforming these assets into “building blocks” capable of interacting with each other and forming scalable energy systems,” said Francisco Morocz, CEO of Heila. “Table Rock and MassCEC recognize that the ground-up approach behind the Heila EDGE® platform is the right choice to build stronger, cleaner and more resilient distributed grid systems, and their investment will help us realize the technology’s full potential and target highly scalable markets.”
Heila has developed a modular energy platform to automatically connect any distributed energy resource, in any configuration, into resilient and reliable power networks. It does this by combining advances in edge-computing, control, optimization and machine learning with a deep understanding of power and energy. The Heila EDGE® platform allows customers to operate their assets based on grid constraints or economic or sustainability considerations. It can also be scaled as demand needs change, making it the most flexible product on the market.
“We saw right away the necessity of the Heila breakthrough. It knocks down the risks of DER microgrid investment and implementation and allows microgrids to evolve over time around existing and/or changing assets seamlessly,” said Megan Matson, Partner at Table Rock Infrastructure Partners. “Heila is how we see essential services (water, power, sanitation) getting comfortable relying on DER microgrid power, and we look forward to being a part of its future.”
“Heila Technologies is yet another Massachusetts company with a groundbreaking solution for today’s emerging energy challenges,” said Stephen Pike, CEO of MassCEC. “Massachusetts is a global leader in clean energy innovation and climate resiliency, and MassCEC is pleased to support Heila’s efforts to build the electricity grid of the future.”
Heila’s co-founders Dr. Jorge Elizondo and Francisco Morocz met at MIT and decided to start a company to productize a better way to manage DERs, leveraging Elizondo’s academic background and real-world experience controlling and optimizing energy systems. Shortly after, they were joined by software lead Jose Dunia. The company was officially established in late 2015, and for the next five years it expanded through revenue generated from visionary early adopters and the help of awards and grants from prestigious institutions such as MIT, DOE, DOD, NSF and MassCEC.
Heila has deployed its proprietary technology in real-world, high-stake applications to optimize system performance and increase resilience. For example, when the California wildfires raged in the hills of Sonoma, California in 2017, the Heila-controlled microgrid located on the property insulated itself from the power disruptions, providing steady power throughout the blackouts.
As the electric power industry undergoes a transformation, the race is on to find solutions that can manage new technologies and integrate them seamlessly into the legacy grid. This investment sets up Heila and its Heila EDGE® platform as a formidable and competitive contender in that race.
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Media Contact: Albert Chan, , (833) 434-3452
About Heila Technologies, Inc
Heila Technologies is an MIT-born company founded in 2015 to simplify the integration and operation of distributed energy resources (DERs). Combining decades of deep theoretical knowledge and practical industry experience, the team at Heila is dedicated to accelerating the adoption of sustainable energy technologies. The Heila EDGE® platform provides unparalleled automation and modularity, dramatically reducing system complexity and cost. The company is based at Greentown Labs in Somerville, Massachusetts, host of the upcoming Climatetech Summit where Heila will be showcasing its bold climate solution. To learn more visit www.heilatech.com.
About Table Rock Infrastructure Partners
Table Rock is a specialized private equity team committed to improving public infrastructure in the U.S. with a focus on essential water, wastewater and clean energy services. Table Rock led the first public-private partnership concession in water and wastewater in the U.S. and continues to invest in and manage that utility together with its labor partner ULLICO on behalf of the City of Rialto. Partners Peter and Megan also helped California’s first CCA (Community Choice Aggregation) energy agency get launched and replicated, achieving both its launch financing and political support. https://tablerockpartners.com
About Massachusetts Clean Energy Center
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC) is a state economic development agency dedicated to accelerating the growth of the clean energy sector across the Commonwealth to spur job creation, deliver statewide environmental benefits and secure long-term economic growth for the people of Massachusetts. MassCEC works to increase the adoption of clean energy while driving down costs and delivering financial, environmental and economic development benefits to energy users and utility customers across the state. https://www.masscec.com
Additional Resources and Background Information:
Microgrid Kept Power On Even as the California Wildfires Caused Outages details how Heila technology allowed a vineyard to maintain power after fire islanded its microgrid from the utility.
A New Approach to Microgrids Passes Key Hurdle in New Mexico describes a first-of-its-kind pilot project that integrates utility power with a DC microgrid using Heila’s EDGE® Platform.
The Power Plan of the Future is Right in Your Home profiles Basalt Vista, an all-electric Colorado housing project designed as a living laboratory to test advanced power grid technologies which utilizes Heila’s technology.