By Ian McConnell
ABERDEEN-BASED Verlume, a manufacturer of battery technologies aimed at helping energy companies reduce their carbon footprint, has received a £2.5 million investment to support its international development.
The funding round was led by Edinburgh venture capital firm Par Equity. Existing investors Orchard Venture Capital and Scottish Enterprise also participated in the funding round. Taxpayer-funded Scottish Enterprise has invested in Verlume since 2016.
READ MORE: Brexit: So will Johnson act to avoid ‘further unnecessary pain’?: Ian McConnell
Verlume, formerly known as EC-OG, offers products and services across the underwater, offshore and onshore sectors aimed at helping clients to reduce their carbon footprints and decarbonise operations.
The firm’s flagship product is a scalable, modular battery energy storage system. This product, which has integrated intelligent energy management, is named “Halo”. It is described by Verlume as “an easily installable, autonomous power source that can integrate with renewable energy systems to create a zero-emission power system at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods of power delivery”.
READ MORE: Brexit: Ian McConnell: A year on, we’re all reaping what the Brexiters sowed
Verlume already serves a global customer base. It is supplying the first commercial Halo battery system as part of a “world-first” sea trial off the coast of Hawaii, where it is part of a wave energy project for the C-Power SeaRAY autonomous offshore power system.
Richard Knox, founder and managing director of Verlume, said: “As society continues to transition to cleaner energy systems, we have been experiencing greater demand for our decarbonisation solutions.”
Kerry Sharp, at Scottish Enterprise, said: “It is great to see the continued growth of Verlume – a company we’ve invested in since 2016 – as it now enters this new chapter. More and more, the finance community is recognising the collective responsibility we all have to maximise the wider impact of our investments, supporting technologies that are sustainable and will help us on the journey to net zero.”
Paul Munn, managing partner of Par Equity, said: “Par Equity specialises in identifying exciting, transformational technology companies with the potential for high growth. Two years ago, we were able to kick-start Verlume’s growth journey. Since then, we have further developed our capability to lead and coordinate investment consortia and I am delighted that our support will help them achieve the next stage in their expansion plans."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here