Younicos, based in Austin and Berlin, announced Tuesday it has signed agreements for $50 million in venture capital.
The company plans to use the funds to scale sales of its intelligent energy storage solutions.
First Solar, a global provider of solar energy solutions and Grupo ECOs, a sustainable investment-focused private equity firm, invested along with an undisclosed strategic lead investor.
Earlier this year, Younicos moved into new 32,500 square foot Austin headquarters at 3100 Alvin Devane Boulevard is located about ten minutes from Bergstrom International Airport and downtown Austin. In April of 2014, Younicos was the winner bidder to acquire the assets of Xtreme Power, a battery storage maker based in Kyle, in a Chapter 11 liquidation bankruptcy case.
“Utility-scale storage is an exciting new frontier for grid flexibility and modernization that can help to facilitate high penetration of renewables in certain circumstances. Younicos is a true trailblazer in grid-scale storage integration,” Raffi Garabedian, First Solar’s Chief Technology Officer said in a news release. “As the promise of storage continues to evolve, we are eager to understand how it will broaden our own power plant offerings. This is an important investment in continuing and potentially accelerating the shift of our energy landscape to renewables.”
“The signing of this investment round ignites the second stage of our growth plan,” James P. McDougall, CEO of Younicos said in a news release. “Following our successful reorganization at the beginning of the year, our new investors now strengthen us not only financially, but will also help us capture important market segments more rapidly with higher value, products and services.”
Younicos, founded in 2005 in Berlin, Germany, has more than 150 employees in Germany, Kyle and Austin. Younicos makes intelligent storage and grid solutions based on battery technology. It has nearly 100 megawatts installed in more than 20 energy storage projects worldwide.
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