CorPower Ocean, a wave energy device developer headquartered in Stockholm, has just announced the largest single investment in its wave energy technology with €32 million Series B1 funding. The announcement was made at EIT InnoEnergy’s Business Booster event in Barcelona, one of Europe’s premier sustainable energy conferences, where TFN is providing live coverage on October 16th and 17th.
Investment details
The investment came from NordicNinja VC (which recently backed VSParticle and LiveEO), SEB Greentech the cleantech investment arm of the SEB bank, and InnoEnergy, one of the most active cleantech investors in Europe. The investor consortium also includes Santander Asset Management, a major financer of renewable energy assets, Iberis Capital, a leading Portuguese Venture Capital and Private Equity investor, and Cisco Investments alongside existing shareholders.
With this round, the latest funding raised by the company accounts for €95 million. The funding will support the commercial rollout, taking wave energy towards a bankable mainstream energy source. This follows breakthrough results from CorPower Ocean’s commercial scale device surviving the biggest Atlantic storms while efficiently generating power in regular ocean conditions.
Wave energy, a path toward sustainability
Wave energy represents one of the largest untapped clean energy sources, amounting to more than all of today’s hydro or nuclear capacity. Significant resource lies along the European Atlantic, US West Coast, South America, Africa, India, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Local jurisdictions are fast adopting wave energy targets, including the UK and Portugal, with the US recently proposing new instruments to ramp up commercialisation and industrial development.
With a consistent and complementary power profile, wave energy can play a key role in stabilising the clean energy mix, helping to fill the gaps between wind and solar, and supporting ambitious 24/7 carbon-free energy targets adopted by data centres worldwide. It comes amid growing demand for 24/7 clean electricity from broader industrial electricity consumers and policymakers to decarbonise and mitigate climate change.
Offers utility-scale wave energy to the world
Founded in 2012 by Stig Lundbäck and Patrik Möller, CorPower Ocean designs, builds, and installs turnkey solutions that allow customers to power the planet with clean energy from ocean waves. It addresses the two main challenges that have held back commercial adoption of wave energy – storm survivability and efficient power generation in normal ocean conditions.
The company brings high-efficiency Wave Energy technology enabling reliable and cost-effective harvesting of electricity from ocean waves. Wave farm projects are being developed by customers using CorPower Ocean’s technology along the Atlantic Arc, including sites in Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, and Norway. One project is being developed by Ireland’s state-owned energy supplier, ESB, off the coast of County Clare, following two decades of investigating a wide variety of technologies. The pre-commercial phase of the Saoirse Wave project will involve CorPower Ocean WECs (Wave Energy Converters) as part of a CorPack cluster.
In CorPower Ocean, 85 people from 22 countries have come together in one of the most ambitious efforts to bring utility-scale wave energy to the world.
CorPower Ocean co-founder & CEO Patrik Möller said: “Today’s announcement follows breakthrough results reported earlier this year from the firm’s ocean demonstration at the Aguçadoura site in northern Portugal, where the CorPower C4 became the first commercial-scale wave device to successfully demonstrate the ability to survive the biggest Atlantic storms combined with a large power generation capacity with respect to the size and cost of equipment.”
Investors’ views
NordicNinja VC’s Managing Partner Tomosaku Sohara said, “The CorPower Ocean team combines decades of wave-power experience and world-class company building ability to unlock untouched ocean resources in Europe, the US, and Japan. We are excited to support CorPower Ocean as a lead investor, and this funding round is a strong testament to the team’s achievement and the momentum from the market.”
“The technical ability CorPower Ocean has demonstrated to survive the biggest Atlantic storms has been truly impressive. Wave power will finally meet the level of industrial expectations,” added NordicNinja VC’s Managing Partner Marek Kiisa.
InnoEnergy CEO Diego Pavia said: “Harvestable and accessible wave energy resources in the world amount to 500GW, with availability and predictability way above wind and solar. As such wave energy is a must to have to supply 24/7green electricity, we need to decarbonize the energy and industrial system. CorPower Ocean has consistently demonstrated the energy ratings and maintainability it promised, also in harsh environments. With this financing round, we speed up the commercialisation phase.”
Markus Hökfelt, Investment Director SEB GreenTech VC said: “This truly is an amazing team of people encompassing world-leading engineering skills, know-how, determination, and drive, led by a CEO in Patrik Möller with the top qualities that we look for as investors. By providing the support and funding they need, CorPower Ocean will make wave power a reliable, competitive, and scalable energy source.”
Iberis Capital Partner Diogo Chalbert affirmed: “We believe wave energy is emerging as a transformative force in the renewable energy landscape, holding vast potential as a reliable and sustainable power source for the future. We are proud to support CorPower Ocean, a recognized leader in the sector, whose C4 device has demonstrated outstanding durability and reliability, even enduring several major storms in Portugal”.
“Cisco has a goal to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions across our value chain by 2040,” said Jon Koplin, Senior Director at Cisco Investments. “We’re excited to invest in CorPower Ocean and their wave-energy technology to complement solar and wind, creating 24/7 renewable power needed by data centers and smart buildings worldwide.”
This article is part of a partnership with EIT InnoEnergy. For partnering opportunities, contact akansha@techfundingnews.com or sales@techfundingnews.com.
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