A Cape Town-based start-up focused on using AI to enable digital infrastructure for electricity trading has closed a US$1.8-million (R32-million) seed funding round, it said on Tuesday.
Open Access Energy (OAE) secured the funding from E3 Capital, Equator VC and Factor E and will use the money to “accelerate the energy transition” in South Africa, it said.
“The round will accelerate product development and customer growth as the company scales to meet rising demand for flexible, decentralised energy infrastructure,” OAE said in a statement.
Its flagship product, EnergyPro, is a cloud-based software platform that enables energy “wheeling” – the process of delivering electricity from decentralised renewable producers to distributed consumers via existing transmission infrastructure.
Its platform automates the backend processes, including metering, risk management and forecasting, ensuring energy generation and consumption loads are efficiently matched in real time, it explained.
“As distributed renewable energy production continues to grow, it cannot efficiently be matched with consumer demand, leading to an excess of clean energy, despite unmet consumer needs for power.”
Liberalised market
“Private generation is central to South Africa’s energy transition. This funding allows us to scale the tools that independent power producers and energy traders need to participate in and benefit from the liberalised energy market,” said OAE CEO Gerjo Hoffman.
Read: South Africa announces R4.7-billion in grid-scale battery projects
“Building on this momentum, we can now focus on scaling our platform and shaping the future of the local energy market,” added OAE chairman James Irons. “We will continue to seek out further strategic investment options in the near future.” — © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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