Intamac Gets £4M for Home Energy Cloud Computing
Summary
The new money will be used to add new products and services to the Northampton, UK-based startup’s mix of in-home energy gadgets and displays and the cloud computing network it’s built to support them. CEO Kevin Meagher said last year that the company was managing “tens of thousands” of homes in the UK and Australia, tracking home security and automation systems as well as energy devices and giving homeowners a view over website or mobile device, all via Intamac’s cloud-based management system. “It will be so much cheaper and so much more scalable for the consumer.” (For more on cloud computing, join the GigaOM network at its annual Structure conference June 23 & 24 in San Francisco) Meagher has said that he’s talking with major U.S. telecoms interested in using energy management as a sweetener to sell broadband into the home, a tack being taken by other energy management startups as well. Kleiner Perkins-backed startup iControl is working with broadband providers and home security firms to supply an energy management tool that could be bundled into the monthly fees that homeowners pay for those services. For more analysis of this trend see Broadband Service Providers Are About to Ride the Home Energy Wave at GigaOM Pro (subscription required).
