On-Ramp Wireless, a US-based developer of wireless solutions to connect devices used in energy automation and M2M communications, has secured an additional $15m in its series C funding round from new investor Enbridge, a Canada-based energy delivery company, and existing investors, venture capital firm Third Wave Ventures and Energy Technology Ventures – a joint venture between the corporate venturing units of GE, NRG Energy and ConocoPhillips.
The latest fundraising brings the total raised in the series C round to $31m: in July 2012: On-Ramp kicked off its series C round by raising $10.1m from Energy Technology Ventures.
The funds will be used to further commercialize the company’s smart grid and digital oil field solutions, in addition to opening new markets.
On-Ramp investor GE Ventures is also a strategic sales and integration partner: GE has embedded On-Ramp’s Total Reach technology in their Grid IQ AMI P2MP solution to support Grid Modernization applications. New investor Enbridge plans to utilize On-Ramp’s wireless platform for long range monitoring of its distributed asset base helping to drive operational efficiencies and deliver actionable information regarding pipeline integrity.
Chuck Szmurlo, vice president, Alternative and Emerging Technology, Enbridge, said: “On-Ramp’s technology addresses a current and future need for our operations, enabling us to better connect with and monitor assets, such as transmission pipelines, in a more economical and reliable manner than conventional wireless technologies currently allow. By automating the monitoring of these assets we are able to improve operational efficiencies and know, within seconds, valuable information that can help us reduce risk and save costs versus manual inspection processes.”
Kevin Hell, president and chief executive officer, On-Ramp Wireless, said: “On-Ramp Wireless will use the latest round of financing to continue to expand our large ecosystem of application partners in our key energy markets and extend into new adjacent verticals through our strategic partner program. We are seeing significant growth opportunities from enterprises that want to monitor and manage their hardest to reach assets, irrespective of location. Our technology can easily connect assets that have previously been unreachable, from oil and gas pipelines spanning hundreds of miles of harsh terrain to electrical transmission and distribution assets, both above and below ground. The Internet of Things is no longer just a vision for our customers; working together, we’ve made it a reality in their day-to-day operations, and their improved financial and operational performance, energy efficiency, and safety proves it.”
On-Ramp is a participant in GE’s $20 million ecomagination Accelerator program, which is an offshoot of the $200m ecomagination Challenge. In 2011, On-Ramp raised $11.5m of a planned $14.7m round, according to another SEC filing. In 2010 the company raised $4.5m of a planned $18m filing. In 2007 the company raised $4.2m in debt and convertible securities, according to another filing.