US-based Tendril, which provides applications for the electric grid and is backed by industrial conglomerate General Electric (GE), has raised $23m in its series D round to help acquire peer GroundedPower.
GroundedPower operates its Interactive Customer Engagement System for consumer-driven energy management and efficiency.
Greg Kats, partner at Good Energies, a quasi-corporate venturing division run by the Brenninkmeijer family that owns retailer C&A, said: "GroundedPower brings methods of creating persistent behavioral energy efficiency together with an user-centered design team."
New York public employees pension scheme Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association & College Retirement Equities Fund (TIAA-CREF) invested in the D round consortium in its second deal in the past week as part of a venture capital agreement with Switzerland-based clean-tech family office Good Energies. TIAA-CREF provided $50m to a Green Building Technology Partnership with Good Energies that will co-invest alongside its clean-tech deals.
On Friday, TIAA-CREF joined Good Energies and venture capital (VC) firms Energy Capital Partners, Sail Ventures and Second Avenue Partners, in the $24m series C round for Ice Energy, a provider of smart grid-enabled distributed energy storage.
Tendril is also backed by Good Energies, as well as VCs VantagePoint Venture Partners and RRE Ventures and GE.
In October last year GE Energy Financial Services invested as a follow up to Tendril’s $30m series C round that closed in June.
VantagePoint led this C round alongside Good Energies, and VCs RRE, Vista Ventures and Appian Ventures.
In March 2008 Tendril completed its series B round at $12m while its series A round in 2005 raised $1.5m.