Australia’s NRN secures $67M in climate tech Series A deal

NRN (National Renewable Network), Australia’s distributed energy infrastructure platform, has finalised a USD 67.2 million Series A funding round. The raise includes equity and debt, with major support from a superannuation-linked fund, according to a media release.

NRN enables energy retailers like Alinta Energy (an NRN-partner retailer) to offer customers solar and battery systems with no upfront costs, repayments, or system maintenance fees. With NRN, retailers can quickly build a distributed renewable energy portfolio and white-label it as their own Virtual Power Plant plan. 

This significant capital raise, comprising both equity and debt, is backed by climate technology investors, led by Investible, Virescent Ventures, Electrifi Ventures, Ecotone Partners’ newly established Planet Fund, and a major debt commitment from Infradebt managed funds (including the Australian Ethical Infrastructure Debt Fund). Throughout the raise, Neu Capital has been acting as NRN’s debt advisor, the media release said.

“Millions of Australian homeowners want solar but the costs are prohibitive, and every energy retailer wants to scale up their solar energy generation,” said Alan Hunter, CEO and Founder of NRN. “Our platform integrates tech, data, capital, compliance, and market access, to neatly solve the problem at both ends. For customers, it’s access to solar with no upfront fees. For energy retailers, NRN can instantly establish or scale distributed energy businesses without capital-intensive balance sheet burdens, while maintaining complete ownership of the customer experience. 

In the past 24 months, NRN has expanded its network by more than 600 per cent, with over USD 12 million in renewable energy assets under management and nearly 10 megawatt hours of installed battery capacity. Total funding now exceeds USD 85 million. NRN expects to deploy an additional 40 megawatt hours of battery storage over the next 12 months.

With this new funding, NRN will accelerate the rollout of its national platform and continue expanding its role as the connective layer between industry, government and regulators, the media release said.

“This Series A marks Investible’s third investment in NRN since leading their seed round in March 2024,” said Ben Lindsay, Investment Principal at Investible. “This latest raise represents the largest investment from our fund to date, underscoring the conviction we’ve built in the team, the model, and the scale of the opportunity.”  

“Alan and the NRN team have built a smart, scalable solution to one of the most pressing challenges facing Australia’s energy transition — grid stability,” said Blair Pritchard, Partner at Virescent Ventures. “Australia’s transition to renewables has reached a critical moment —without the rapid deployment of battery storage and distributed generation technology, the energy transition will stall. NRN’s business model and technology can help address this by rapidly unlocking additional storage capacity, while democratising access to solar and battery technology.”