Philly-Based Green Tech Company Viridity Sells for $35M
Photo by zhengzaishuru /iStock
A geothermal and renewable energy company from Nevada will purchase Viridity, a Philly-based smart-grid company with more than 100 clients — including Drexel University and SEPTA – the companies announced on Tuesday.
Viridity, which was started in 2008 by energy industry veterans and is currently housed in Center City, uses smart-tracking software that monitors building energy usage in real time.
Ormat, which is based out of Reno, is a public company with a market cap of $2.6 billion. The company will acquire Viridity for an initial consideration of $35 million. Additional contingent considerations are possible if performance milestones are met later on.
Viridity CEO Mack Treece said in a statement that the deal allows the company to be “ideally positioned to fulfill our core mission, and our employees will benefit from becoming part of a larger company.”
Viridity has brought in roughly $40 million in venture capital since it was founded, according to GreenTech Media. In a statement released on Tuesday, Viridity said it would keep its name and “continue operations and retain current management and staff, as well as maintain all customer relationships and agreements.”
The company helped SEPTA save millions last year by aiding in a service that captured energy created by braking trains and fed it into storage batteries.
Ormat CEO Isaac Angel said in a statement that the deal “marks Ormat’s entry into the rapidly growing energy storage and distributed generation markets.” Energy storage, which makes up about 2 percent of U.S. generation capacity, is a fast-growing segment of the energy industry that is “set to explode” in 2017, according to the Energy Storage Association.
Follow @ClaireSasko on Twitter.
