Odyssey Energy Solutions Raises $5.34 to Expand Distributed Renewable Energy Across Emerging Markets

Distributed renewable energy is leapfrogging the grid in emerging markets to expand access to power for the 3.5 billion people without reliable power 

The company is catalyzing $1B in financing across Africa & Asia
with freemium business in a box platform

BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Odyssey Energy Solutions, a first-of-its-kind platform to unlock massive scale in renewables in emerging markets, has raised $5.34M in new funding led by Equal Ventures. Participating investors included Twelve Below, Abstract Ventures, Founder Collective, and MCJ Collective. 

According to BloombergNEF's 2021 New Energy Outlook, investment in energy supply and infrastructure is expected to reach up to $173T over the next 30 years. With strained grid infrastructure in emerging markets and falling costs of renewable technologies, distributed renewable energy (DRE) is leapfrogging centralized grids and will be at the core of infrastructure investment in the years to come. 

Odyssey enables developers to plan, finance, build, and operate DRE projects at scale with its freemium business-in-a-box platform, democratizing access to leading edge technology, better financing and lower cost equipment procurement. Odyssey is currently catalyzing more than $1B of finance into the DRE sector, with more than 1500 companies using the platform across five continents.

"The DRE market is fragmented, lacking the data and standardization required for large-scale investments," said Emily McAteer, CEO, Odyssey Energy Solutions. "By solving for core frictions in one platform, our solution provides the tools to build investable portfolios and truly unlock scale." 

The new funding will be used to launch new financial products for DRE in emerging markets aimed at infusing more private capital into the markets, scale Odyssey's aggregated procurement platform and advance remote monitoring, control, and analytics technologies for a wide array of asset types. 

"We see the energy transition as one of the greatest (and most challenging) opportunities of our lifetime. Emerging markets represent one of the most economically and environmentally impactful areas to address the challenges, but have thus far been hindered by access to technology and capital," said Rick Zullo, general partner, Equal Ventures. "We are thrilled to partner with this first-class team to accelerate the global energy transition in a way that no one else has done before."

Odyssey's CEO, Emily McAteer, has more than 15 years of experience in energy management and DRE, having launched SunEdison's microgrid business as chief revenue officer of Frontier Power, along with Odyssey co-founder Cathy Zoi, clean energy leader and former Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at the U.S. Department of Energy.

Emily received a Fulbright scholarship in India working on distributed renewable energy and has an MBA from Stanford Business School and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School. She is joined by an experienced leadership team which includes Piyush Mathur, chief business Officer, who was CEO and led a successful exit for pay-as-you-go solar home system company Simpa Networks. 

Since 2019, Odyssey has announced a series of major electrification projects on the platform. In particular, Odyssey is the platform for the Nigeria Electrification Project (NEP), a $550M initiative of the Federal Government of Nigeria financed by the World Bank and the African Development Bank. NEP is one of the most ambitious electrification projects in history, targeting to connect over 3.5 million people to electricity, 109,000 businesses, and over 500 hospitals, universities, and health centers. 

Odyssey Energy Solutions is a venture-backed climate tech company transforming distributed energy globally. Odyssey offers a freemium end-to-end solution to finance, build and operate distributed energy projects at scale across the globe. The company is facilitating more than $1B of finance into the sector and is backed by leading investors. For more information, please visit, https://odysseyenergysolutions.com. 

SOURCE Odyssey Energy Solutions