AlertMe, a UK-based home energy conservation company, has acquired Wattbox, which provides heating and hot water controls.
The Wattbox Intelligent Heating Control technology detects through energy use from a smart meter when homeowners are away and automatically adjusts the heating controls leading to a 15% decrease in energy and hot water costs.
In October last year, AlertMe raised £15m ($23.9m) in its third investment round which included a strategic investor and local utility British Gas.
British Gas invested £5.7m in cash for its 15.96% stake and will take a seat on AlertMe’s board, it said.
Alongside its equity investment, British Gas has agreed to pay more than £20m to deploy AlertMe products and services to its customers in the UK as it rolls out two million smart meters by 2012.
Phil Bentley, managing director at British Gas, said: "AlertMe’s product portfolio is a great addition to British Gas’ current service offering, and will provide our customers with a range of new, easy to use tools to reduce their energy consumption and cut their fuel bills."
Gearoid Lane, managing director for Communities & New Energy at British Gas, added by email: "Whether we are planning on buying more minority stakes, I’m afraid I can’t comment. I would point out that we already have a number of other investments already, including stakes in Ceres power (developing a novel solid-oxide fuel cell CHP boiler), Econergy (a leading designer and installer of biomass heating systems), and Secure Electrans (a developer of in-home display and payment systems)."
The other consortium members in AlertMe’s B round were its previous investors, venture capital firms SET Venture Partners, which invests on behalf of two Netherlands-based utilities, Good Energies, Index Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners.
AlertMe raised £8m in June last year from the venture consortium and £5m in initial funding in 2007 from hedge fund Tudor Investment Group.