The role of the EDF Pulse Ventures programme is to identify new, innovative activities and solutions outside of EDF group, in order to expand the investment portfolio managed by EDF Pulse Holding by acquiring interests in start-ups and venture capital funds.
The programme can also result in the creation of joint ventures with start-ups that are capable of exploring new business models and winning new markets in France and abroad. The goal is primarily to build an industrial and commercial partnership between these start-ups and the business lines of EDF group, with the support of EDF Pulse Holding as a shareholder.
Since 2017, around €270 million have been invested through the EDF Pulse Incubation and EDF Pulse Ventures programmes, in 25 in-house and external start-ups and in 20 investment funds, primarily in France, but also in Europe and North America.
Enerbrain is an Italian start-up that specialises in smart building solutions. It has developed a solution to optimise the energy efficiency of tertiary buildings, using IoT smart sensors with a software layer that incorporate artificial intelligence in order to manage each building’s electrical consumption. During a €5.2 million investment round for Enerbrain, EDF Pulse Holding acquired a stake in the company, alongside other financial and institutional investors.
Persefoni is a US start-up that provides companies and institutional investors with solutions for measuring, analysing, planning, anticipating and publishing their carbon footprint. The Persefoni platform uses artificial intelligence to enable organisations to manage their transactions and the inventory of their carbon emissions with the same strict standards as their financial transactions. Persefoni was designed for both companies and institutional investors. It provides a complete carbon footprint management system. EDF Pulse Holding acquired a stake in this start-up during a Series B investment round of $101 million.
Algar is a French start-up that specialises in the streamlining and management of procedures to obtain planning authorisations for the general public and professionals. It provides a complete service for facilitating legal procedures that enables owners to obtain planning authorisations using an entirely online process. Algar is thus one of the property technology (“PropTech”) start-ups that is transforming the real estate sector by means of digital technologies. EDF Pulse Holding acquired a stake in this start-up during a Series A investment round of €3.2 million.
ITK is a French company that was founded in 2003. It specialises in agri-intelligence. ITK designs and develops agronomic modelling and artificial intelligence solutions to improve agricultural performance and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by farming. ITK’s technology simplifies the management of crop profitability and the impact of crops on the environment, as well as of animal health and well-being. ITK has three sites: Montpellier (Occitania), Rennes (Brittany) and San Francisco (California, USA). EDF Pulse Holding acquired a stake in this start-up during an investment round of €10 million.
EDF Pulse Holding has acquired a stake in a fund that is dedicated to the development of clean hydrogen infrastructures. This fund is managed by Hy24, a joint venture held on a 50/50 basis by Ardian, a world-leading private investment house, and FiveT Hydrogen, a clean-hydrogen private investment and asset management platform. This fund will invest in the entire renewable low-carbon hydrogen value chain in the most promising regions of America, Asia and Europe. In the capacity of partner, it will invest alongside other major developers and/or industrial players, in large-scale clean hydrogen projects, in both the upstream and downstream sectors.
Other entities and subsidiaries of the EDF group complete the range of energy services that EDF offers. They are active in specific areas, and target various categories of customers (residential, professional, business and local government). They cover a wide range of activities including research, construction, equipment maintenance, investment financing and assistance with obtaining permits and subsidies.
To help customers manage their energy and utilities consumption, EDF group provides facility monitoring and management solutions. The subsidiaries Netseenergy and Edelia, which, for the past 15 years, have been focused on this strategic line of action, merged on 1 January 2021, thus leading to the creation of Datanumia. Datanumia is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF group. It provides innovative digital solutions so that each type of customer (residential, business and local government) can optimise their energy consumption and their carbon footprint by leveraging new forms of energy.
The company specialises in energy intelligence for buildings and industrial processes. Datanumia assists companies and local government in energy transition throughout the energy management value chain. Datanumia processes almost 10 million items of data daily for around 45,000 sites in total, using bespoke solutions tailored to the needs of its customers: energy performance control, innovative energy audits, and more. Datanumia specialises in the IoT (Internet of Things). It collects data from 60,000 smart objects every day, and provides energy management for total building space of over 120 million square metres.
Datanumia also designs and implements solutions for individuals to monitor and control their energy consumption. Datanumia thus provides a digital platform so that EDF customers can benefit from a range of innovative digital solutions in order to monitor and obtain a granular understanding of their energy consumption (electricity and gas). This platform currently has around six million active residential customers.
Sowee is a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF group that was founded in 2016. Its goal is to give each customer the means to achieve more efficient energy consumption. Sowee provides residential customers with solutions and services for managing energy consumption, which can be separate from the energy supply contract. All Sowee customers are able to monitor their consumption and their invoices in their mobile application. They can also receive warnings if their consumption exceeds certain limits. For a customer, understanding their energy consumption is the first step towards planning and controlling their expenses.
For customers who have a gas boiler or electric radiators Sowee also provides the Sowee Smart Station as an additional tool. This provides remote, smart management services for customers’ heating systems, without them having to change their installation.
The Smart Station also facilitates access to services that help with daily life through the integration of Amazon Alexa and the display of practical information, such as the indoor (CO2 and humidity) and outdoor air quality, weather forecasts, ephemeris, etc. Lastly, Sowee also launched a “managed load shedding” option in 2021 for its customers who own the Smart Station.
IZIVIA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of EDF group, is a flagship player in the electric mobility market in France. IZIVIA provides charging solutions for electric vehicles targeted at local authorities, energy consortia, and businesses. It provides support to its customers at all stages of their electric mobility projects (technical and commercial operation of charging services, maintenance of charging points and management of user services).
IZIVIA is the leader on the public charging market, with a share of more than 25%. It is one of the key players, with around 20% of the market for charging points that are eligible for the Advenir subsidy (1). The company operates 14,500 charging points.
Cham is wholly-owned subsidiary of the EDF group, specialising in the installation, maintenance, and repair of domestic electric heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment: heat pumps, gas and oil-fired boilers, air conditioners, thermodynamic tanks, etc.
With over 1,000 employees across France, Cham completes more than of 800k call-outs a year, meeting the needs of homeowners, private and public collective housing, and businesses.
Cham draws on 70 local offices and its digital channels in order to win over and serve customers. Cham continues to expand its portfolio of heat pumps in order to assist its customers in energy transition. The company is also trialling remote diagnosis and repair.
Driven by relentless pursuit of growth, Cham is positioning itself as a specialist home energy renovation services provider based on three key strengths: professional staff, network expertise and strong local markets.
(1) The Advenir programme was started in 2016 and provides subsidies for financing the rollout of charging point infrastructure.
