Investors' interest in Indian SaaS continues as Bidgely bags $26 million from US-based firms

Bengaluru- and California-based tech firm Bidgely on Thursday said it has raised $26 million (about ₹190.8 crore) in funding led by Moore Strategic Ventures. The round also saw participation from Accurant International as well as existing investors like Future Energy Ventures, Georgian and Constellation Technology Ventures, a statement said.

The SaaS (Software-as-a-service) startup had raised ₹15 crore from IvyCap Ventures in March this year. The US-headquartered company has raised a total of $77 million in funding to date.

The company offers artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to electricity distribution companies to enable them to serve their customers better as well as modernise their grid operations.

"As India's extensive smart meter penetration continues, this new investment enables Bidgely to provide tailored solutions that support the country's biggest utility needs: electricity theft prevention, grid stability and electric vehicle (EV) accommodation," the statement said.

Working with a leading private Indian electricity distribution company (Discom), Bidgely has demonstrated the acute ability to detect non-technical losses through disaggregated smart meter data, it added.

It, however, did not disclose the name of the customer.

Bidgely is targeting multiple use cases, including AI-based short-term load forecasting, analytics-based customer indexing and asset predictive maintenance to solve multiple challenges for Discoms, the statement said.

"Bidgely's Silicon Valley roots and strong engineering arm in India play not only to our strength of providing AI technology to established markets like North America and Europe but also to our ability to address key issues in emerging markets," Bidgely CEO Abhay Gupta said.

He added that India's energy landscape, specifically, is evolving rapidly, and the company's work around theft detection and grid stabilisation goes to the heart of problems that cost the utility industry billions of dollars a year.

Bidgely pioneered load disaggregation, holds 17 patents for its technology and partners with nearly 40 global utilities and energy retailers to glean valuable customer energy insights, using data from smart meters already installed in the home. It processes more than two billion energy data points a day.

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