Combination improves affordability,
engagement, choice, and revenue assurance for electric, water, and
gas utilities in North America,
Asia Pacific, and Latin American
Markets.
DALLAS, May 21, 2024
/PRNewswire/ -- Exceleron Software and PayGo Utilities today
announced they have merged their business operations and formed
Empower Grid Holdings ("EGH") with financial backing from Moore
Strategic Ventures, Bahman Hoveida's
Accurant International LLC, and Avista Development, Inc., a wholly
owned, non-regulated subsidiary of Avista Corp. With the
combination of Exceleron's dominant presence in the municipal power
market and PayGo's leadership position serving large investor-owned
and public power utilities, Empower Grid Holdings' scale and
experience will better serve the growing affordability needs of
utilities and their customers as part of the Energy Transition.
Both companies are active in international markets, including
Exceleron's existing team and pipeline in the rapidly evolving
Indian prepay market. The companies will continue to market under
their respective brands.
Exceleron CEO and Founder, Bob
Crenshaw, will serve as Executive Chair & Co-CEO with
PayGo CEO, Jeff Weiser serving as
Co-CEO and Ravi Raju as
COO.
"This is a timely opportunity to accelerate innovation for the
75+ utilities and their customers served by the combined entity
across 23 states. Both teams deliver solutions driving higher
engagement, energy savings, and extremely high customer
satisfaction. There is no limit to what we can do together to
deliver the right outcomes for the combined customer base as the
utility industry faces growing demand requirements, rising costs,
and higher customer expectations." said Bob
Crenshaw.
"Energy and water utilities need affordable billing and payments
solutions that help customers control energy and water spend. Both
companies' prepay programs lower customer energy costs by as much
as 15% while delivering customer satisfaction that is significantly
higher than traditional billing. We are excited about offering
customers new features from Exceleron, and expanding our impact on
energy choice and efficiency," said Jeff
Weiser.
Hunter Horgan of Moore Strategic
Ventures, EGH's lead investor, said "The best way to afford the
energy transition is by empowering all consumers with better
choices and more control over how and when they use energy. We are
excited to have Avista Development, Inc. join the investor group
and look forward to working with the combined teams from PayGo and
Exceleron to reach their full potential."
"Utilities are looking to more frequently and effectively engage
with their customers and pre-payment provides this platform with
substantially increased customer satisfaction" said Bahman Hoveida, President of Accurant
International. "Engaging with all customers to reduce peak events
on grid assets will ultimately lower the cost for grid
participants."
"For more than a decade JEA has utilized Exceleron's prepay
solution to empower our customers with billing options and greater
choice," said Sheila Pressley, Chief
Customer Officer at JEA. "We are delighted that the new company
will be well positioned to deliver outcomes that could result in
greater customer satisfaction."
"Salt River Project's M-Power prepay option has long helped our
customers manage their payments and reduce their energy use. We
look forward to the opportunities this merger brings to grow and
innovate our M-Power program for the benefit of our customers,"
said Vanessa Kisicki, Salt River
Project Associate General Manager and Chief Customer Officer.
Empower Grid Holding's legal advisor on this transaction was DLA
Piper.
About Exceleron Software
With over 60 utility
customers, Exceleron Software is one of North America's leading utility prepay and
payment service companies. Exceleron's MyUsage® is a
cloud-based software-as-a-service solution focused on prepay,
consumer engagement, integrated consumer messaging, and integrated
payments. MyUsage has been utilized by electric, water and gas
utilities to increase energy affordability for consumers. On
average, MyUsage consumers realize 10-15% energy conservation and
efficiency improvements while the utilizes can reduce write-offs
and outstanding debt by more than 70%. Consumers have more access
to detailed information about their energy consumption and greater
control over the amount, frequency, and methods of payment. This
increases customer choice, improves customer satisfaction, and
significantly lowers financial risk for utilities. More
information available at www.exceleron.com
About PayGo
PayGo® is a software company focused
solely on utilities and their customers. The platform enables
prepay and full stack payment services to America's largest
investor-owned and public power utilities. PayGo enables higher
customer engagement, affordability, satisfaction, and
sustainability, while improving revenue assurance. Utility
customers gain control in how they manage and pay for their energy
and water spend, along with ways to reduce consumption. The
Company's Cloud CIS product helps municipal utilities to provide
integrated postpay and prepay billing, and payment processing
across all utility services. PayGo processes customer cash payments
through its single proprietary bar code for all utility customers
at the checkout counter at 85,000 retail locations including
Kroger, Dollar General, Family Dollar, CVS, Walmart and other
retailers. More information is available at
www.paygoutilities.com.
About Exceleron India
Founded in 2012 in Bengaluru,
India, Exceleron India supports
the development and maintenance of Exceleron Software's MyUsage
solution. Although originally established as a software engineering
company, the company has recently started selling the MyUsage
software into the Indian market. As India suffers from the
largest non-technical loss (i.e. theft) of electricity in the world
at roughly 24%, the Government of India has issued a regulatory mandate for the
implementation of 250 million prepaid smart meters which are also
eligible for subsidized costs and are supported by existing MyUsage
functionality. Exceleron India is actively in sales discussions
with Indian utilities about implementing MyUsage with first
deployments expected in 2024. At 250 million customers,
India represents the largest
prepay market in the World.
About Moore Strategic Ventures
Moore Strategic
Ventures, LLC is the privately held investment company for
Louis M. Bacon, Founder and CEO of
Moore Capital Management, LP.
About Empower Grid Holdings
Empower Grid
Holdings (EGH) is a platform company created by Moore Strategic
Ventures (Sponsor) and Accurant International (Co-Investor) in
December 2022 with a specific focus
on the electric utility software sector. EGH's mission is to
acquire and consolidate smaller software companies that specialize
in solutions for enhancing customer engagement and billing
processes within the electric utility industry.
About Accurant International
Accurant International
offers solutions, technologies, and services to help utility and
corporate clients implement projects and solutions related to
digital transformation, grid modernization, energy efficiency, grid
resiliency, maintenance & asset management, EV management &
demand response, and renewable integration. Accurant invests in and
advises climate-tech companies in their solutions development and
go-to-market and sales strategies. Accurant has a global team of
industry seasoned sales directors who promote portfolio
technologies to utility partners. They lead and execute solution
sales strategies to IOUS, Munis, Coops and
Fortune 100 companies. For more information, visit
www.accurantllc.com.
About Avista Development
Avista Development, Inc., a
wholly owned, non-regulated subsidiary of Avista Corp. (NYSE: AVA),
invests in early-stage, strategic companies as well as strategic
limited partnerships in clean tech funds, that help inform the
Utility of the future for Avista and its stakeholders.
Avista is an energy company involved in the production,
transmission, and distribution of energy as well as other
energy-related businesses. Avista Utilities is its operating
division, providing electricity to nearly 418,000 customers and
natural gas to about 382,000 customers across 30,000 square miles
and four northwestern states. Avista's history of innovations is
rooted in in the renewable energy we've generated since our
founding in 1889.
Avista has been recognized for the fifth time by Ethisphere, a
global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical
business practices, as one of the 2024 World's Most Ethical
Companies.
Media Contacts
Exceleron: |media@exceleron.com
PayGo: |media@paygoutilities.com
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SOURCE Exceleron Software