Open Access Energy (OAE), a South African startup using AI to enable digital infrastructure for electricity trading, has closed a $1.8 million seed funding round with participation from E3 Capital, Equator VC, and Factor E Ventures.
The round will accelerate product development and customer growth as the company scales to meet rising demand for flexible, decentralised energy infrastructure.
OAE’s flagship product, EnergyPro, is a cloud-based software platform that enables energy wheeling – the process of delivering electricity from decentralised renewable producers to distributed consumers via existing transmission infrastructure.
OAE’s platform automates the backend processes including metering, risk management, and forecasting – ensuring that energy generation and consumption loads are efficiently matched in real time.
OAE was founded in 2021 as South Africa accelerated its transition away from coal dependency. The country’s power grid struggles with reliability issues, and its energy production relies on an aging stock of coal-fired plants.
However, as distributed renewable energy production continues to grow it cannot efficiently be matched with consumer demand, leading to an excess of clean energy, despite unmet consumer needs for power.
“Open Access Energy has built a software-led solution for a real-world problem – enabling renewables to flow through existing infrastructure, said Andrew Darge, E3 Capital’s lead on the transaction, “The opportunity for digital technology to support municipal wheeling, embedded generation, and transparent settlement at scale is exactly what Africa’s power sector needs to drive the transition to lower carbon economies.”
“South Africa’s energy future will be shaped by private generation and local distribution of clean power,” said Morgan DeFoort, a partner at Equator VC, “Open Access Energy is building critical infrastructure to make this possible. We’re backing a team that combines unique technical capability, a strong understanding of the evolving southern Africa energy market, and deep relationships with municipal and private sector stakeholders.”
“Private generation is central to South Africa’s energy transition. This funding allows us to scale the tools that Independent Power Producers and Energy Traders need to participate in and benefit from the liberalised energy market. We’re proud to have the support of leading investors who understand the opportunity and are committed to building long-term impact,” shared Gerjo Hoffman, CEO of Open Access Energy
“Building on this momentum, we can now focus on scaling our platform and shaping the future of the local energy market,” said James Irons, chairman of the Open Access Energy Board. “We will continue to seek out further strategic investment options in the near future, with specific interests in securing a local investment partner.”
