Climate Insider Brief:
- LevelTen Energy secured approximately $65 million in Series D funding, led by B Capital and involving major investors like Google, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, and others.
- The LevelTen Platform, the world’s largest online hub for carbon-free energy transactions, has facilitated over $14.8 billion in clean energy deals.
- LevelTen Energy aims to accelerate the deployment of clean energy to address the climate crisis.
PRESS RELEASE – July 16, 2024 – Today LevelTen Energy, the leading provider of transaction infrastructure for the energy transition, announced that it has secured approximately $65 million in a Series D funding round. The financing, which includes both new growth capital and the conversion of notes, was led by B Capital, a global multi-stage investment firm, with participation from Aster, Constellation, Google, Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, NGP, Prelude Ventures, and ZOMA Capital, among others.
The LevelTen Platform is the world’s largest online hub for carbon-free energy buyers, sellers, advisors, asset owners and financiers. Since its launch, the LevelTen Platform has facilitated over $14.8 billion in power purchase agreements (PPAs), asset sales, and other clean energy transactions. The company has raised more than $125 million since inception.
“The clean energy industry’s growth has been astonishing, but the climate crisis demands that we deploy even more clean energy at a much faster rate. Rapidly growing electricity demand is straining our infrastructure and threatening to undermine climate goals. Our existential need to keep global warming in check requires us to scale procurement and bring new technologies to mass markets even more quickly,” said Bryce Smith, founder and CEO at LevelTen Energy.
“When we founded LevelTen in 2016, our primary objective was to build a robust marketplace that simplified and scaled power purchase agreements, the long-term contracts that allow clean energy projects to get financed and built. I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made. The LevelTen Platform has facilitated the procurement of more than eight gigawatts of clean energy. To put that figure in perspective, the electricity generated by these projects is sufficient to power the entire city of Barcelona. In addition, our new LEAP™ (LevelTen Energy’s Accelerated Process) technology dramatically accelerates PPA contracting, reducing overall procurement timelines by 80%,” he said.
The LevelTen Platform provides the marketplaces, software tools, and industry intelligence clean energy players need to transact with efficiency and confidence. The Platform comprises the LevelTen Energy Marketplace, which connects clean energy buyers and advisors with power purchase agreement opportunities, and the LevelTen Asset Marketplace, which facilitates the purchase or sale of the underlying wind, solar, storage, and other clean energy assets themselves. In April, the company expanded its Platform to support the transfer of federal clean energy tax credits — unlocking even more financing opportunities for development. The Platform’s data products (MarketPulse and PPA Price Index) provide the market with the most recent and extensive real-world information to inform pricing and procurement decisions.
LevelTen’s network includes more than 1,000 project developers across North America and Europe, 50 energy advisors, and a variety of retail electricity providers who use the platform to source clean energy supply on behalf of their clients and customers. Many of the world’s largest corporate and utility clean energy buyers consider the Platform vital to their operation, making LevelTen the global hub for clean energy transactions.
“At B Capital, we partner with leading climate entrepreneurs and innovative businesses shaping the future through technology,” said Jeff Johnson, General Partner and Head of Climate. “LevelTen is the world’s largest marketplace for clean energy and asset transactions and a pioneer in powering the renewable energy industry and beyond. We are thrilled to support LevelTen’s vision to further the energy transition by providing critical solutions for buyers, sellers and advisors around the world.”
New Solutions for the World’s Most Pressing Challenges
“Society has made strong progress in tackling climate change — but it’s still not enough,” said Smith. “The next phase of the transition to a carbon-free economy will require new marketplaces, new sources of market intelligence, faster access to capital, and significant investments in emerging technologies. With this renewed financial support from our investors, LevelTen will build on our past success, and provide new solutions to the energy transition’s most pressing challenges,” he said.
Further LevelTen innovations supported by the new funding include:
- Unlocking the full potential of round-the-clock carbon-free energy supply. In December 2023, LevelTen announced the Granular Certificate Trading Alliance, a collaboration with AES, Constellation, Google, and Microsoft to develop a first-of-its-kind trading and management platform for “granular certificates” (GCs) — energy attribute certificates that verify the time and location of carbon-free energy (CFE) generation. This platform, under development in partnership with the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), will support the next wave of sustainability targets — including 24/7 carbon-free energy goals and emissions-first objectives.
- Expanding into new geographies. LevelTen currently operates in 32 countries across North America and Europe. With the additional funding, the company will expand into new markets. Many of LevelTen’s multinational customers seek to reduce emissions globally. Launching the LevelTen Platform in new geographies will support even more organizations as they seek to meet ambitious Scope 2 and 3 emissions-reduction goals, creating a global solution to a truly global problem.
- Supporting more types of buyers and sellers. As electricity demand rises, and as renewable portfolio standard requirements increase, utilities must move quickly to secure clean energy supply. LevelTen’s transaction infrastructure helps utilities move at the speed required to succeed in modern energy markets, which includes a wide array of corporate and utility buyers vying for a limited pool of new clean energy resources. In addition, as newer carbon-free technologies emerge, the LevelTen Platform will connect these new facilities with the offtakers and investors required to scale.
- Decarbonizing heavy industry and supporting clean hydrogen. LevelTen Energy is already tackling the significant greenhouse gas emissions caused by industrial processes. According to the EPA, industrial activities created 23% of U.S. emissions in 2022, compared to the 25% resulting from electricity generation. It’s critical that we reduce these emissions. As such, LevelTen is excited to be a founding member of H2DI — a collaboration led by the Energy Futures Initiative, selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to manage the H2Hubs demand-side support mechanism for clean hydrogen. LevelTen brings highly-relevant transaction infrastructure expertise, as well as the clean energy project development experience, to support the design and implementation of this $1B program to jumpstart industrial decarbonization.
About LevelTen Energy
LevelTen Energy is the leading provider of transaction infrastructure for the energy transition, delivering marketplaces, software, data and analytics that accelerate carbon-free energy deals and decisions. The LevelTen Platform is the global hub for carbon-free energy transactions and insights, connecting over 1,000 project developers in 32 countries with a vast network of corporations, advisors, traders, financiers and other organizations seeking to advance carbon-free energy development. The Platform includes marketplaces for power purchase agreements, clean energy projects, and tax credit transfers, and will soon support the trading of granular certificates. In addition to building and operating marketplaces, LevelTen Energy provides automated analytics and fresh data to inform key decisions for all market participants, as well as software to help users manage business before, during and after transactions. Visit LevelTenEnergy.com to learn more.
SOURCE: LevelTen Energy
Featured Image: Credit: LevelTen Energy
