The French AI-powered energy flexibility platform, Orus Energy, has raised €2.2 million in pre-seed funding. The round was led by European venture capital firm b2venture (which backed Yenduo and DUDE CHEM) and French impact funds Asterion Ventures and Ring Capital. The round also gathers several angel investors from the industry, including Pierre Trémolières (Accenta.ai) and Myriam Maestroni (e5t).
The funding will be used to accelerate the company’s deployment and product development, and help build out its 20-person core team by the end of 2025 to meet customer demand.
How was the idea born?
In this evolving energy landscape, demand-side flexibility becomes a cornerstone of the transition to a resilient energy system that fully integrates renewables. Modulating the power usage of flexible equipment such as heating, EV charging, and systems based on grid demands directly reduces reliance on polluting peak periods.
While demand-side flexibility has proven effective in the industrial sector, generating €1.3 billion in France in 2022, it has reached its limits. Commercial buildings, which account for over a third of peak electricity consumption, offer the greatest potential for scalable flexible power. With this vision of unleashing electricity flexibility potential on a large scale, the founders Théophile Karila, Fanny Sauvée and Alexandre Girard created Orus Energy in 2023.
What does Orus Energy do?
The French startup is revolutionising the way buildings interact with electricity markets. By optimising the aggregated flexibility of numerous buildings, Orus’ software dynamically adjusts energy usage, shifting it to times when electricity is cheapest and greenest, providing valuable flexibility to the electricity grid.
Leveraging machine learning, the platform predicts electricity consumption and flexibility needs in buildings. Then, it enables intelligent and dynamic control of the electricity consumption for a range of flexible energy-consuming assets like heat pumps or thermostats. The demand response platform interfaces with control systems deployed at scale, to shift power demand without impacting occupant comfort, thanks to the thermal inertia of buildings, and remunerates clients up to 10% of their electricity bill for doing so.
In one year of its debut, Orus Energy has rapidly gathered attention and adoption from both commercial and office buildings owners and facility managers. Its next steps are focused on developing new high-impact features and helping a wider range of customers.
Our thoughts on the company
This funding aims to accelerate its deployment and product development, enhancing energy flexibility for commercial buildings. By leveraging AI and machine learning, Orus optimises electricity usage, reducing costs and emissions. Its innovative platform meets a critical need in the energy transition, showing great potential for widespread adoption and impact in the sustainable energy sector.
