Amperesand raises $12.45M to transform power grids
Company to roll out SiC-based solid state transformer technology tested on the Singapore grid
A new grid infrastructure company called Amperesand, founded by industry veterans from ABB, General Electric, Siemens and Vestas, has announced seed financing of $12.45 million.
The funding will help the company roll out infrastructure solutions powered by solid-state transformer technology. The aim is to facilitate bidirectional energy flow, intelligent monitoring and energy management with native integration of mixed AC/DC systems, to enable the rapid adoption of EV fast charging, energy storage and renewable energy systems.
The SiC-based technology has already been tested on the Singapore grid at a 1.5MW scale through a 7-year research program executed by the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technology University of Singapore.
The company will initially target the EV fast-charging infrastructure market, with initial delivery of systems in the US and Singapore planned for 2025.
Xora Innovation and Material Impact co-led financing with participation from TDK Ventures and Foothill Ventures.
“Over 7 years ago, Anshuman [Anshuman Tripathi, Amperesand co-founder and VP of Engineering] and leaders from Singapore’s research ecosystem had the foresight to project the evolution of SiC technology, and the rapidly evolving requirements of power grids, leading to the creation of a highly ambitious solid state transformer research program at NTU. The time for commercialisation of SSTs is now right from both a technology and market readiness perspective, and we are excited to partner with the founding team we consider to be in pole position,” said Phil Inagaki, managing director at Xora Innovation.
According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA), the demand for next-generation DC fast-charging infrastructure alone is projected to grow to 200GW by 2030, representing a market opportunity exceeding $200 billion.
