Naked Energy secures £5.25m growth funding
The company is redefining solar with Virtu its unique, high-efficiency technology. Environmental fund manager Earthworm Group led the round with co-investment from Taqa Holdings Ltd.
Additional investment came from existing shareholders and new investors supported by Ethical Fin, Fonte Capital, Green Angel Syndicate and Syndicate Room.
Earthworm Group has more than £100m under management and only backs businesses that have a positive social or environmental impact. Taqa Holdings is a multi-billion turnover international conglomerate with interests in manufacturing, agriculture, trading and services.
Naked Energy is a UK-based business in the sustainable energy sector with a global outlook. The company has already made significant progress in product development and testing of its Virtu technology, a patented hybrid solar collector. As Virtu generates both heat and power it is much more efficient than conventional solar photovoltaic (PV) products. The capital raise will accelerate the company’s sales and marketing efforts including international distribution partnerships, as well as volume production and automation.
Virtu can deliver a peak efficiency of 80%, converting 20% of the sun’s energy to electricity and 60% as heat. On a typical commercial flat roof, conventional PV panels need up to 50% more space than VirtuPVT to generate the same financial savings – and up to 300% more to deliver the same carbon savings. The compact, novel design means more energy is generated from less space – a particular advantage in the built environment where distributed energy solutions are most needed to tackle climate change and insulate against rising energy costs.
Christophe Williams, Co-founder and CEO, Naked Energy said: “We are delighted to complete the latest and most important funding round to date. New investment enables Naked Energy to unlock the huge commercial potential for distributed renewable heat which is key to tackling climate change and allowing energy users greater choice and financial flexibility.”
Will Brocklebank, Managing Director, Earthworm, said: “This solution is tremendously exciting because it offers a better way for customers around the world to harness solar energy to displace fossil fuels used in heating, cooling and energy generation. Naked Energy’s design also enables its customers to generate heat and power from a wider range of roofs, walls and other surfaces compared to traditional solar PV products, which all helps our transition to a greener energy mix. We are delighted to join Christophe and the team on this exciting journey.”
A spokesperson for Taqa Holdings confirmed: ”the Group sees this as a highly strategic investment that complements the adoption of a more sustainable business model for our own energy consumption. We also see the potential to introduce and promote Virtu to our wider network as the Group expands its interests in the renewable energy sector.“
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For further information, please contact;
Ben Prior – ben@earthwormgroup.com or Christophe Williams – c.williams@nakedenergy.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
About Earthworm
Earthworm is an environmental fund manager which only backs projects that will have a positive social or environmental impact.
We work closely with industry professionals from food, waste and energy, to source, develop and nurture start-up and scale-up businesses with significant commercial potential. Although it is vital for the companies within the Earthworm community to make a return for our investors, it is equally important that they are ethically driven and they contribute to the circular economy.
Earthworm now manages over £100m of investor capital. 10% of Earthworm profits go to charitable causes and 10% is invested directly in the environmental technologies of tomorrow.
About Naked Energy
Naked Energy set out to provide clean, cost-effective energy through its innovative designs and business models. They believe that profit and sustainability are not mutually exclusive. Energy security, cost and environmental impact drive everything Naked Energy does.
Energy for heating and cooling accounts for approximately 50% of global energy demand and 39% of carbon dioxide emissions. Increasing urbanisation, growing populations and economic development present unique challenges to how thermal energy is consumed and delivered. Renewable thermal energy has received a lot less attention than renewable electricity but has an even more important role to play. That’s why Naked Energy developed VirtuPVT. They looked at everything from the end consumer’s perspective. Starting with the premise that the consumer wants to take control of their energy in terms of security of supply, cost and environmental impact.
Their initial focus is on commercial and industrial customers where they can make the biggest positive impact. After staff costs, energy is the next highest controllable expense. By definition, businesses are in a specific location and will take up a clearly defined space in the built environment. Naked Energy wants to help businesses optimise the amount of energy they can generate for a given space in the most economical way possible that will have the greatest positive impact on their energy costs and CO2 emissions without compromising on the availability of that energy when it is needed.
That means generating more energy from less space. Naked Energy is also very conscious of ensuring that the cost of delivering the solution is optimised so that the savings generated recoup the initial investment as quickly as possible.
Press pack: https://www.nakedenergy.co.uk/press-pack
Introductory film on VirtuPVT http://virtu.nakedenergy.co.uk
About Taqa Holdings Ltd:
Taqa Holdings is owned by a progressive multi-billion conglomerate with diverse investments in Industrial, Agricultural, Trading and the Services sectors. The activities of the Group are spread across multiple geographies, the more important ones from an operations stand-point being Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, UK, India, Kenya, Malaysia and Indonesia.
In recent years the group has been investing and working on projects in the energy sector with a strong emphasis on renewable energy under its new company called Innovative Efficient Solutions (IES). The group plans to increase its involvement in this sector considerably in the near future, with other investments and projects globally.