Pentalum Technologies, an Israel-based company developing wind turbine controls backed by Switzerland-based power and automation technology group ABB, has raised $5.5m in its series C round from a consortium led by Bright Capital, a multi-corporate venture capital firm.
All existing investors of Pentalum participated in the round.
In November 2010, ABB used its corporate venturing group, Technology Ventures, to make a strategic investment in Pentalum Technologies. Pentalum raised $9m in its first round from venture capital firms Cedar Fund, Evergreen Venture Partners and Draper Fisher Jurvetson in July 2011. The round was then kept open to allow ABB in and increase the amount raised.
Girish Nadkarni, president of ABB Technology Ventures, said this was the first deal with Bright Capital. By email he said: “Although we have looked at a number of deals where they were investors, this is the first deal we have done together. I am sure we will do others.
“Bright Capital approached Pentalum and has offered to help it with business development in parts of the world where they seem to have strong relationships.”
Boris Ryabov, managing partner at Bright Capital, said: “We will be able to utilize our broad network of connections to industrial companies in Russia and CIS [Commonwealth of Independent States] to help Pentalum expand into new and promising wind energy markets with its unique Spidar technology.”
Sagie Tsadka, co-founder and chief executive of Pentalum, added: “Since launching the Spidar wind Lidar in mid-2012, Pentalum has delivered more than 50 systems to customers worldwide.”