In recent years, consumers and companies alike have been on the lookout for new ways to lessen their day-to-day environmental impact. While electric vehicles and biodegradable products certainly play a part, D.C.-based Arcadia is convinced there’s always more to be done. The company is on a mission to decarbonize the energy grid, and it’s acquired a new company to help reach its goal.
Arcadia is working to achieve a zero-carbon future, starting with its Arc platform. This solution combines data and tools in a central place, granting companies access to what they need to monitor, report and act on their climate impact. Incorporating data, billing and clean energy APIs, the solution is meant to help businesses in any sector build new, energy-efficient products.
Joining Arcadia’s ranks is Atlanta-based Urjanet, a utility data provider focused on global energy and sustainability management. The company will be fully integrated into Arcadia, as will its global data access that will expand the reach of its Arc product.
This acquisition builds on a momentum of growth for Arcadia. Along with launching Arc in November, the company saw 155 percent revenue growth year-over-year in 2021. It also achieved the milestone of having 700 megawatts of solar energy under management as of April this year. Arcadia recently raised a $200 million funding round, bringing its total funding to $380 million and its valuation to $1.5 billion.
“Although the challenge of fighting climate change looms larger every day, we’ve never been more hopeful about Arcadia’s ability to transform and accelerate the climate tech industry. We’ve made huge strides on the community solar side over the past couple of years,” Kiran Bhatraju, founder and CEO Arcadia, told Built In via email. “But we know that decentralized, cleaner energy sources are just part of the equation. The secret of this company, and the market, is that accessible meter and grid data is key to rapid decarbonization.”
Thanks to added capabilities from Urjanet, the company now stretches data coverage across the country to more than 95 percent of residential and commercial accounts. Across 52 countries worldwide, Arcadia covers over 9,500 utilities such as electric, gas, water and waste. Overall, this encompasses 137 million households and 19 million businesses and covers $300 billion in annual electricity spend, according to the company.
“With our acquisition of Urjanet, Arcadia becomes the world’s largest aggregator of utility data and will now help companies manage sustainability goals with accurate ESG data, energy optimization, renewable energy, payments and carbon accounting,” Bhatraju said.
The merger will bring all of Urjanet’s employees from its Atlanta headquarters as well as its office in India onto Arcadia’s workforce. The combined company now employs over 700 people and is actively hiring across all departments with most roles based in D.C., according to Bhatraju.
“When I met Kiran a few years ago, it was clear that Arcadia and Urjanet shared one of the most important visions in the decarbonization movement: democratizing access to energy data,” Sanjoy Malik, CEO of Urjanet, said in a statement. “We can now work together to accelerate the energy transition and help companies achieve their sustainability goals.”