Elyos Energy has raised a £2.5 million seed round of funding ‘to build energy resilience’.
The London startup is aiming to build a new energy system by launching flexibility and demand response for mass markets.
The round was led by Silicon Valley-based Rebel Fund, billion-dollar Swiss fund Zeno Partners, climate VC fund Endgame Capital and renowned accelerator Y Combinator.
The national grid spends $4 billion each year on demand response, leveraging gas peakers to manage surges of demand in an attempt to reduce the risk of blackouts during periods of peak electricity usage, according to Elyos.
Balancing supply and demand on the grid will become even more important with electricity consumption set to grow rapidly as a response to the urgent need for electrification of heat, rapid adoption of EVs and growing demand for air conditioning. In addition to this, the electricity supply will become increasingly unstable as more and more of our energy comes from renewable sources.
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To help balance the grid, we can either build significantly more supply than demand to ensure security of electricity in peak periods – or build a flexible grid.
Elyos says the first option is not feasible due to expense, inefficiencies and insufficient grid infrastructure.
It says $200bn of renewable projects are awaiting connectivity to the grid – stalling the pace of Net Zero – and so a responsive energy system is what is desperately needed to deliver the energy transition.
“We began our journey with Elyos at the beginning of the year after working at industry giants like OVO Energy, Bulb Energy, BCG, and Goldman Sachs,” the firm stated.
“After witnessing first-hand the energy crisis of 2022 and leading teams launching multiple energy-flexibility offerings for the UK B2C market, we recognized the immense potential to bring these same innovations to the commercial market.”
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