Read Time: 5 minutes
Tech Topics In This Article: Clean Energy, corporate partnerships
The world is hungrier for energy like never before.
Data centers designed to keep up with increased demands for artificial intelligence companies, robotics products in hospitals and warehouses, and new electric vehicle fleets are all driving up our overall energy usage.
The result? A modern energy grid strained under the weight of demand and a growing urgency to rethink how power is generated, stored, and used.
While there are plenty of more sustainable energy sources available for businesses looking to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, it can be difficult for those businesses to figure out exactly what options are best and most cost effective.
The startup VECKTA hopes to change the energy equation. Backed by Atlanta investment firm Tech Square Ventures, the startup is bringing an end-to-end onsite energy deployment platform to market to help enterprise businesses improve their energy usage.
INSIDE THE VECKTA PLATFORM
The VECKTA platform analyzes thousands of data points around energy rates, permitting constraints, energy demand, and technology costs to assess how a business can best implement onsite energy systems. The platform can help companies determine what on-site energy systems or microgrids — including solar panels, batteries, generators, combined heat and power (CHP), or wind power — best fit a specific location’s needs.
VECKTA then provides financial, operational, and emissions summaries for site-specific technology configurations, while its online marketplace makes it easier to find reputable vendors when they are ready to implement a new project.
“More companies want affordable, reliable clean power,” Gareth Evans, VECKTA’s CEO, told Hypepotamus, adding that VECKTA’s solution can help companies work on improving their own “energy sovereignty.”
BUILDING ENERGY IN ATLANTA
While the startup was launched in California, Atlanta has played a crucial role in VECKTA’s early stages. Not only are several of the startup’s 20 employees based in the city, but Atlanta’s VC and corporate innovation scene has helped VECKTA connect with early enterprise adopters and partners.
Bill Nussey, Atlanta-based entrepreneur and investor who now serves as Partner at Tech Square Ventures and Managing Director of corporate accelerator program Engage, was particularly influential in the startup’s early days. Nussey quite literally wrote the book on decentralized and localized energy systems, which is what attracted him to VECKTA. It was through the Engage program that VECKTA got connected to Georgia’s healthcare giant Wellstar.
The startup just announced a new strategic partnership with Wellstar alongside a direct investment from Catalyst by Wellstar, the health system’s innovation company and venture firm.
The partnership will help Wellstar implement energy efficiency upgrades and install onsite energy systems at select Wellstar locations. That can create a big energy-savings opportunity across the company’s hundreds of hospital and healthcare facilities across the State of Georgia.
“They want to reduce their energy consumption through energy efficiency, and then where it makes financial sense deploy onsite energy systems,” said Evans, adding that VECKTA can help Wellstar “make smart decisions” and deliver the right data to the right stakeholders across sustainability and real estate operations.
“Investing in sustainability-focused innovations is a strategic opportunity that goes beyond cost reduction,” said John D Cooper, Head of Venture at Catalyst by Wellstar, in a press statement. “By prioritizing energy efficiency and clean technology, Wellstar can improve operational resiliency and reduce the system’s environmental footprint, driving long-term value and a more sustainable and responsible future.”
With the investment, VECKTA joins a growing list of climate and sustainability-focused startups in Catalyst by Wellstar’s portfolio, including Bee Downtown, VoLo Earth, FarmBox Foods, and Goodr.
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