Blue Pillar, a leading provider of software-based solutions that increase real time visibility and control into distributed energy assets, today announced a $14 million financing led by EnerTech Capital. This round of financing also included the Maryland Venture Fund and existing investors Allos Ventures, Arsenal Venture Partners and Claremont Creek Ventures and will scale the company to meet the accelerating demand for its Aurora Digital Energy Internet of Things™ and Avise Foresite™ Centralized Facility and Fleet Management software platforms.
'Blue Pillar had a record year in 2014 for both revenue and new customer additions,' said Tom Willie, CEO of Blue Pillar. 'What is even more exciting is that we have already surpassed our entire 2014 sales bookings in the first two months of 2015. This financing enables Blue Pillar to scale our business, building on the breakout opportunities emerging in both our traditional and new customer segments. We can also continue to expand our Internet of Things, energy management, and centralized facility and distributed energy resource software solutions to meet these emerging marketplace needs.'
'Blue Pillar has built its business connecting distributed energy assets for demanding and complex customers,' said Bill Kingsley of EnerTech Capital. 'The speed of deployment enabled by its software approaches always impressed us, but the recent customer adoption showed that Blue Pillar's strategies and products are valued by customers looking for energy management solutions with strong return on investment. We believe in the Company's strategy and look forward to working with the existing investors and management team to drive the rapid growth of Blue Pillar.'
'Blue Pillar has proven tremendous, immediate value to customers in over 250 deployments by enabling a completely connected facility and offering centralized data analytics and management capability,' said Paul Straub of Claremont Creek Ventures. 'The Company's software platform is equipment vendor agnostic, easy-to-deploy and is becoming essential for anyone interested in better managing distributed energy resources and ensuring they will be able to seamlessly integrate new generation, storage, metering or renewable assets in the future.'
Blue Pillar's Aurora, Avise Insite™ and Avise Foresite software solutions address the most pressing challenges for today's complex and critical facilities. Blue Pillar's suite of connectivity, energy and centralized enterprise facility management solutions empower facility executives to recover value from stranded facility assets and reduce power-loss risk, while improving energy efficiency across multi-site facility systems and facilitate demand response programs.
Aurora is a Digital Energy Internet of Things platform that securely connects, controls, and collects data from facility equipment.
Avise Foresite is a Centralized Facility and Energy Fleet Management software applications platform allowing multi-site facility or energy fleet operators to centrally manage energy efficiency, resiliency, capital and local emergency events.
Both new platforms, coupled with Blue Pillar's professional services, augment Blue Pillar's Avise Insite real-time analytics offering, so local facility operators can gain insight into their energy, operations and compliance capabilities within a single complex and critical facility.
About EnerTech Capital
EnerTech Capital is a private investment firm focused on innovation in the energy and power industries: early- to mid-stage companies that offer products or services that dramatically improve the profitability of producing or consuming energy. Founded in 1996, the firm has managed approximately $500 million and has delivered 30 exits. EnerTech is currently investing out of its fourth fund and has offices in Toronto, Philadelphia, Montreal, Calgary and Menlo Park. For more information, visit www.enertechcapital.com.
About Maryland Venture Fund
The Maryland Venture Fund is a regionally recognized leader in seed and early-stage investing and a national model for state-supported investment programs. With nearly two decades of experience and numerous successful investments, MVF invests in highly innovative technology companies across the full range of industry sectors including software, communications, cybersecurity and life sciences companies in the areas of healthcare IT, medical devices and diagnostics.
About Claremont Creek Ventures
Claremont Creek Ventures (CCV) is an early-stage technology venture capital firm. The firm focuses on information technology (IT) and business model innovation opportunities with the potential to transform essential, broad-impact industries such as energy, healthcare, transportation and industrials. As the pace of digital innovation increases, these massive sectors represent a highly attractive, yet significantly underserved, opportunity to build leading technology growth companies. CCV partners with entrepreneurs and institutions, including UC Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore Labs, Stanford University and UC Davis. CCV currently manages more than $300 million in capital across two funds. For more information, visit www.claremontcreek.com.
About Blue Pillar, Inc.
Blue Pillar is a leading provider of facility Internet of Things (IoT) and energy management solutions for complex single site and centralized multisite facilities. The Aurora, Avise Insite and Avise Foresite platforms connect, control, and manage data to help organizations improve energy resiliency, efficiency and overall facility operations. Today, over 255 of the most critical, complex and geographically dispersed facilities -- across healthcare, government, higher education, and other industries -- use Blue Pillar to manage their energy and power systems. For more information, visit www.bluepillar.com and follow Blue Pillar on Twitter at @bluepillarinc.