Arcadia buys Urjanet to tap its global and commercial energy data

Clean-energy data startup Arcadia has followed its recent $200 million funding round with an acquisition that greatly expands the scope of its business.

On Tuesday the company announced it had purchased commercial energy data provider Urjanet for an undisclosed sum in a cash and equity deal. Urjanet supplies Arcadia’s Arc software platform with a ready-made trove of data integrations to more than 9,500 utilities in 52 countries. And it complements Arcadia’s residential energy services with offerings for businesses.

Both companies spent the last decade chasing a similar vision: a world where utilities’ energy data is easily accessible. Arcadia focused on connecting residential customers to clean-energy offerings by logging into utility accounts on the customers’ behalf. Urjanet pulled data on behalf of commercial customers to help them analyze and plan around their energy usage.

Just two weeks ago, Arcadia raised $200 million from J.P. Morgan and other funders. At the time, CEO Kiran Bhatraju told Canary Media that he wanted to expand into serving commercial customers and branch out to countries beyond the U.S. This acquisition will accomplish both of those things — as soon as the two companies are fully integrated.

“The acquisition pulled our product roadmap forward by years,” Bhatraju told Canary Media Monday. ​“It just made perfect sense to bring this company in and make it part of the Arc platform.”

Earlier this month, Arcadia advertised that its database covered 80 percent of U.S. utility customers. The addition of Urjanet’s utility integrations expands the combined company’s coverage to 95 percent, Bhatraju noted. The two companies together employ nearly 700 people.

Businesses around the world will soon be able to use Arcadia to match their energy consumption with clean electricity credits or production at community solar farms, where policy allows it. Arcadia will also expand its payment and billing services, which combine multiple energy services in a single platform.

But perhaps the most consequential opportunity to result from the acquisition will be in carbon accounting. Increasingly, businesses are pledging to zero out their carbon emissions. To do that, they first need to figure out how much they actually emit, and then find ways to switch to clean energy. The combined forces of Urjanet and Arcadia will be able to track real utility-grade meter data, map it to the carbon-intensity of the grid where those companies operate, and then find clean electricity to match those needs.

It’s a ​“huge untapped opportunity,” because without accurate data, companies are forced to guess, Bhatraju said.