Sydney's Gridsight has pulled in A$36 million (roughly US$26 million) in a Series B round, betting that utilities across the developed world are desperate enough for grid capacity that they'll pay handsomely for software that promises to find it without stringing new wires.
Insight Partners led the round, with Galvanize and earlier backers AirTree Ventures, Energy Transition Ventures and Aera VC participating. The startup's pitch centers on what it calls an "electrical digital twin" — software that pulls data from smart meters, geographic information systems, SCADA controls and distributed energy installations to map where spare capacity actually sits at any given moment.
The timing reflects a peculiar pressure point in the energy transition. Utilities face surging demand from electric vehicles and data centers at the same moment rooftop solar installations are multiplying. The traditional answer involves years of planning and construction. Gridsight's software offers something faster, though not without caveats the company is careful to acknowledge.
Endeavour Energy, a distributor in New South Wales, used the platform to raise export limits for residential solar from 5 kilowatts to 10 kilowatts network-wide. The utility projects that shift will unlock roughly 600 megawatts of additional solar capacity over the coming decade and deliver north of A$100 million in value to customers. Another NSW distributor, Essential Energy, deployed Gridsight's visibility module network-wide; internal data showed 171 distinct users accessed the system in July 2026.
The company claims its platform surfaces visibility "10,000x faster" than legacy systems and identifies "21% more capacity" than the assumption-based power-flow studies utilities have relied on for decades. Those are striking numbers, though the methodology behind them remains somewhat opaque.
American ambitions and data center dollars
The new capital will fund expansion in the United States, where Gridsight has been building a foothold. United Illuminating, part of Avangrid's Connecticut network, selected the startup in summer 2026 under a state regulatory program to construct a digital twin of the utility's entire distribution territory within twelve months. CEO Brendan Banfield has appeared alongside representatives from Xcel Energy and Sacramento Municipal Utility District at industry conferences, a signal the company is moving beyond pilot projects.
"The grid's capacity challenge is not uniform," Banfield said in a statement. "For the majority of the year, significant capacity exists; but it is uneven, dynamic and geographically dependent."
That variability is both the problem and the opportunity. Traditional grid planning assumes worst-case scenarios — the hottest day, the highest demand. Gridsight's software attempts to exploit the reality that those peaks are rare, and capacity sits idle the rest of the time. Whether regulators will embrace that logic broadly enough to matter remains an open question.
The company competes with a cluster of AI-enabled grid analytics firms including Camus Energy, Plexigrid and Splight, along with more established players like Bidgely and Opus One. It's a crowded field chasing similar revenue, though the total addressable market is large enough that multiple winners seem plausible.
Gridsight was founded in 2020 by Banfield, Kurt Walkom and Hugh Chan. The startup raised roughly $4.5 million in a Series A round led by AirTree Ventures and now operates across Australia, New Zealand, the US and the UK. LinkedIn data suggested the company employed 64 people as of September 1, 2026, though hiring has presumably continued. In a recent US job posting, Gridsight claimed it had grown annual recurring revenue 3.4 times over a six-month stretch, though it declined to disclose absolute figures.
Insight Partners, which led the round, oversees more than $90 billion in regulatory assets under management. Galvanize, co-founded by Tom Steyer and Katie Hall, closed a $370 million real estate fund and launched a $1.3 billion credit program within the past year or so. Their involvement suggests confidence that grid software will command enterprise budgets as the energy transition accelerates.
Whether Gridsight can convert that confidence into durable revenue growth will depend on execution in a market where utilities move slowly and the consequences of failure can be measured in blackouts.
