British Gas has led a £7m ($10.5m) investment round in telecoms and data centre efficiency start-up 4energy and plans to roll out the company’s technology to its corporate customers.
The utility now holds a minority stake in the company, as do current investors Environmental Technologies Fund, Carbon Trust, and Catapult, which also participated in the financing.
4energy provides customers with real time data they can use to improve their operations and claims its services can halve the cooling requirements for electronic data centre and telecommunications equipment.
The company said in a statement that its technology will be made available to British Gas’ corporate customers, adding that the funding will help it target blue-chip customers and build on its operations throughout Europe, China, India, Africa and North America.
4energy’s chief executive and founder, Pat Tindale, said the technology would “immediately” enhance British Gas’ customer offering. “We will be able to offer enhanced energy saving solutions to more customers with British Gas’ strong support,” he added.
“Outside of the UK, our strong relationship with British Gas will give us increased credibility on the international stage, as we seek to become a global leader.”
