Breakthrough Victoria portfolio company Amber has closed a $45 million funding round.
The round was led by UK/Europe-based impact investor ETF Partners (The Environmental Technologies Fund), as well as participation from existing backers including Square Peg, Gentrack, Rubio Impact Ventures, and BV.
This investment builds on Amber’s strong momentum in Australia, where it has become the largest residential battery automation product in the market. With 40 per cent of Australia’s new automated home batteries now taking advantage of Amber’s service, the company is showing how everyday households can take charge of their energy use and make money in the process.
BV caught up with Co-Founder Dan Adams to chat about the raise, and what the future looks like for Amber.
First up, how did Amber come about?
About 15 years ago, we saw the coming wave of home batteries and EVs and envisioned a future where they would be automated — charging with renewable energy and discharging when the grid needs power. That, we believed, would be the fastest and most cost-effective way to accelerate the energy transition, unlocking billions of dollars in value for consumers. It's something I've been passionate about for a long time.
Originally, I just wanted to build the technology and license it to utilities. But my co-founder, Chris Thompson, convinced me that if we wanted to create world-class consumer energy products, we needed to be engaging with consumers directly. So in 2018, we became an energy retailer in Australia to build that technology for consumers — with consumers.
It’s been quite a journey since then, and we’re now excited to be growing internationally, licensing our software beyond Australia
From the idea to the first raise to this raise, what have you learned about the company itself and what have you learned about yourself as well?
It’s definitely taken a lot of steps to get to where we are today — some forward, some backward — but overall steady progress. Interestingly, six or seven years into the journey, the business we’ve built looks remarkably similar to what was in our original pitch deck back in 2018.
Of course, getting here took time. First, we had to become an energy retailer. Then we built our battery automation product, which meant integrating with various devices, developing price forecasting, solar forecasting, optimization algorithms, and creating a great front-end app and customer experience.
After that, we tackled the same for EVs. Now we’re doing it again for vehicle-to-grid. And we’re also licensing this technology — which we initially built for ourselves in Australia — to utilities overseas.
It’s been quite a journey, including navigating an energy crisis in 2022, which was a real test for us as an energy retailer. But that experience ultimately sharpened our focus on what we do best: building technology. And today, our battery automation product is really driving our growth.
The ups and downs definitely teach you resilience as a founder, but it's exciting to see the hard work finally paying off.
What was the response from the market and from consumers when you first started?
The initial response felt quite positive — and it was — but as I mentioned, there were clear steps along the way. Step one was becoming an energy retailer and introducing a real-time wholesale energy price pass-through model, something that had never been done in Australia before.
It was a fundamentally different approach to selling energy in the Australian market, and I think a lot of people thought we were crazy at the time. And honestly, if that had been the extent of our ambition, I’m not sure it would have scaled into the kind of business we wanted to build.
But what we saw coming was the rise of home batteries and electric vehicles — and the potential to automate those devices in response to dynamic pricing. That’s where we knew we could unlock thousands of dollars in value per year for consumers.
So we saw strong early growth when we launched the retail pricing model, and now we’re seeing another wave of rapid growth with our battery automation product in the market.
What's harder—creating the technology and the product or raising the money?
Building the technology is definitely the hardest part. Customers want a complete product that just works — no one’s satisfied with something that’s only 80% there. And delivering that means assembling a lot of pieces. You need integrations with all the different home batteries and EVs, you need smart optimization algorithms, and you need a user experience that actually meets customer expectations.
Then you have to make it all work in the messy, real-world setups people have — every home is different. So there’s a huge amount of work involved in turning that complexity into something simple and delightful for customers, something that helps them get more value out of their assets.
That’s what we’ve spent the last seven years building. Sure, raising capital can be time-consuming, but honestly, the real challenge is building the technology itself.
Is the fundraising aspect of what you do a skill you already had, or one you learnt along the way?
It’s funny, before I was at Amber, actually long before, I used to be in the non-profit sector. I organized the Make Poverty History concert way back in 2006 with Pearl Jam and U2.
And at the time I was pitching to artists and sponsors to sponsor that event. And then I was in NGOs for a few years after that, raising money for NGOs.
And in some ways there’s a lot of similarities there. But I think ultimately raising money for a business is a lot easier because you’re not asking people for handouts, you’re building a business that is getting people a big return on their investment
What has BV’s support allowed Amber to achieve?
It was fantastic to have Breakthrough Victoria join our last funding round. That capital has enabled us to do two key things. First, we’ve been able to significantly scale our Australian business over the past 18 months — we've 4X’d the number of batteries and EVs we’re automating in that time.
Second, one of our major goals was to take the technology we developed in Australia and begin licensing it internationally. At the time of the raise, that was still just an idea — but now we’ve proven it, with signed deals including one with E.ON in the UK.
The investment from Breakthrough Victoria has been instrumental in making both of those milestones a reality.
What is it BV provides in that ecosystem is maybe missing?
I think the venture capital ecosystem in Australia is relatively shallow compared to the US or Europe. In particular, there’s a noticeable gap at the later stage of venture capital — specifically early growth-stage investing. Very few investors operate in that space, which means many companies have to look overseas for their next round of funding, adding complexity to their operations.
That’s the gap Breakthrough Victoria is helping to fill — bringing much-needed later-stage VC and growth equity into the Victorian ecosystem, where it’s truly lacking.
Since BV first invested, we’ve probably grown the team from maybe 80 people to over 140 people. So over the last 18 months, the team has grown, and almost all those people are based in our Melbourne office in Victoria.
And just as the last one—what do you see as the future for Amber?
We’re really excited about the future. In many ways, we’ve been building toward this moment for a long time. Now, home batteries are finally taking off in the Australian market, especially with the new government rebate launching mid-year. EV sales are also starting to accelerate across the country.
From an Australian perspective, there’s significant momentum in the market, and we’re proud to be the largest battery automation provider in Australia — a position that gives us strong tailwinds.
Our goal is to automate hundreds of thousands of batteries and EVs across Australia, eventually replacing entire coal, gas, and fire power stations with these automated assets.
At the same time, we plan to take the technology developed here in Victoria and license it to utilities worldwide, leveraging Australia’s advanced position in the energy transition. There’s a huge opportunity to help utilities in other markets benefit from what we’ve built, and we’re excited to make that happen.