Smart grid co. gets $17.3M, heads to Vegas

It’s a race to the finish line, and armed with a new round of funding, Salt Lake City-based Control4 wants to get there first. The IP-based home and business automation company, which helps monitor and control energy usage with its technology, secured an additional $17.3 million in equity financing earlier this week.

“We want to be at the center of this,” Control4’s Vice President of Marketing John Yoon told the Cleantech Group. “We are dedicated to the proposition this is a disruptive technology. We are a little crazy about this.”

New investors in the round included Best Buy Capital, Mercato Partners, and University Venture Fund, along with existing investors Foundation Capital, Frazier Technology Ventures, Thomas Weisel Venture Partners and vSpring Capital (see SolFocus closes $77.6M round, readies for manufacturing ramp). Including the most recent round, the company has secured north of $50 million in venture financing, Yoon said.

The funds are expected to be used to speed Control4’s development of energy management systems and energy displays for its emerging Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) products (see What's so smart about smart metering?). Some of the funds are also planned to be used to extend Control4’s sales channels. Later this summer, the company will have shipped more than 1 million of its devices, which use the ZigBee wireless standard, Yoon said.

Control4’s operating system and home area network management products are expected to allow new in-home and business solutions and advanced smart grid applications, as well as entertainment and security features. They are also planned to improve operational efficiencies for utilities during critical peak pricing events or “vampire loads,” while providing users with benefits and savings they can control, Yoon said.

“We can go as far as shutting down everything except the essential services,” Yoon said.

The company provides both hardware and software technology in a black box, which acts as “the director” for monitoring the energy consumption of a home or business, Yoon said. The company plans to use the recent funding to continue developing its products, including its EC100 touch screen which runs a small version of its software, for massive utility deployments as well as consumers to purchase at places including Best Buy, which now has a stake in Control4 through its investment arm.

As a partner with Control4, Best Buy is one of the company’s retail points of distribution. Control4 has already rolled out its products in eight Best Buy stores in three markets, and plans to follow in Best Buy’s 348 retail locations within the next year or so. Yoon said Control4 customers can expect to be aided by Best Buy’s installation arm, Geek Squad.

Control4 has also been deploying its technology in Boulder, Colo., among other locations, which is aiming to be the world’s first smart grid by the end of the year.

Unlike some of its startup-mode competitors, Yoon said Control4 has been shipping its products, which range from light switches to thermostats, since 2005 and has distributors in 37 countries. The company plans to break even this year. Yoon said the United States is still leading the way in the space, especially through the California utilities.

Founded in 2003, Control4 has 212 employees. Its devices are made through contract manufacturers in China, Taiwan and Japan, but designed in the United States.

“We actually have a lot of practical experience,” Yoon said. “A lot of companies have come into the AMI space because it’s such a buzz, but we provide a network of 1,200 trained dealers who know how to set this up.”

In the hospitality sector, the company is already seeing interest pick up for its solutions. The MGM’s CityCenter in Las Vegas will be deploying Control4’s technology in 7,000 rooms, open this fall. From a return-on-investment perspective, Yoon said the hotel staff will be able to put a room in a dormant state after a hotel guest checks out, turning off everything from the minibar to the TV to conserve power.

Control4’s technology has already been commercially installed in 160 rooms at the Rosewood Hotel in Palo Alto, Calif., and 199 rooms at the luxury Montage Beverly Hills in Southern California.

Control4 competitors have rounded up funding and been busy accelerating their technologies in past weeks. In June, Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft launched the beta version of its new Hohm online energy management application (see Microsoft enters energy management with Hohm app). Earlier this year, Google entered the smart grid and energy monitoring market with its PowerMeter program (see Google admits VC rumors).

Also in June, Boulder, Colo.-based Tendril Networks brought in a $30 million Series C round led by VantagePoint Venture Partners for its technology (see VantagePoint leads $30M round in AMI solution leader), while Cambridge, England-based startup AlertMe wrapped up a £8 million ($13 million) Series B round to extend its product development program and continue to ramp up its distribution strategy (see AlertMe closes £8 million to expand in Europe).

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