First Institutional Funding to Help Company Integrate Building Operations with Energy Markets, Expand Business to Top U.S. Cities

Clean Urban Energy (CUE), an energy storage and smart grid performance optimization technology provider, today announced that it has secured $7 million in Series A financing. The investment was co-led by Battery Ventures and Rho Ventures, and will be applied to rapid product development and a multi-city expansion within the United States.

CUE is headquartered in Chicago and plans to use this new capital to embark on a road show fueling strategic development in four new major U.S. cities, including: New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Houston. CUE’s software as a service (SaaS) platform is an automated, scalable, energy-optimization system that exploits the thermal mass of commercial office buildings to make buildings more energy efficient. By aggregating and optimizing the thermal storage properties of multiple buildings, CUE unlocks valuable transmission and distribution capacity for utilities and grid operators in the most constrained environment: the urban city.

“Smart building technologies are quickly becoming a significant new category of investment in cleantech, where energy efficiency meets mainstream IT,” said Jason Matlof, Battery Ventures Partner. “CUE’s a perfect example of this trend. Their solution uniquely combines proven building physics, a robust hosted software analytics platform, and a SaaS business model to deliver dramatic energy spending savings to commercial office buildings. Rich Earley is a proven entrepreneur and leader and we’re excited to partner with him to help grow CUE into a category leading, sustainable business.”

CUE essentially turns a “building into a battery”™ capable of energy storage on a multi-MW scale. CUE technology helps large commercial office buildings reduce building HVAC energy use and expenses by 15 – 30 percent, improve electric generation efficiency and environmental performance, and at a macro level introduces demand elasticity into electric grid markets.

“This funding is an important and critical milestone for our business, and will enable us to accelerate product engineering and customer acquisition during this next phase of rapid growth,” said Rich Earley, CUE CEO. “The market knowledge and relationships that our new investors bring to the table will help us rapidly penetrate the property management and owner community to become a leading technology provider in the market.”

With this round, Jason Matlof from Battery Ventures and Joshua Ruch from Rho Ventures will assume seats on CUE’s board of directors.

“CUE represents a major milestone in the convergence of the cleantech and IT industries,” said Joshua Ruch, Rho Ventures managing partner. “With a compelling SaaS-based solution, CUE is delivering a new standard of electricity savings that uses a building’s thermal mass and delivers significant megawatt storage capacity to grid operators. We believe CUE is well positioned to take advantage of a significant market opportunity in building energy efficiency.”

About Clean Urban Energy (CUE)

Founded in 2007, CUE is the first and only smart grid engine that integrates the HVAC operations of both individual buildings and portfolios of buildings with grid operations and market prices. By executing energy efficiency strategies in large commercial buildings, CUE technology maximizes tenant comfort, reduces costs, extends equipment life, and supports corporate sustainability goals-- while providing multi-megawatt thermal energy storage for the electric grid. CUE has an exclusive R&D and licensing agreement with the University of Colorado. For more information visit www.cleanurbanenergy.com.

About Battery Ventures

Since 1983, Battery has been investing in technology and innovation worldwide. The firm partners with entrepreneurs and management teams across technology sectors, geographies and stages of a company’s life, from start-up and expansion financing, to growth equity and buyouts.

Battery has supported many breakthrough companies around the world, including: Airespace (acquired by Cisco), Akamai Technologies (NASDAQ: AKAM), BladeLogic (acquired by BMC Software), Cbeyond (NASDAQ: CBEY), ITA Software (acquired by Google), LIFFE (acquired by Euronext), MetroPCS (NYSE: PCS), Neoteris (acquired by Netscreen) and Omniture (acquired by Adobe).

Battery’s current portfolio includes emerging leaders in cleantech such as: Calxeda, Greenbytes, Ideal Power Converters, Luminus Devices, Qteros, Redwood Systems, SolarBridge Technologies and Viridity Software.

From offices in Boston, Silicon Valley and Israel, Battery manages $4B in committed capital, including its current fund of $750M. For more information visit www.battery.com or our cleantech blog, www.cleanmakesgreen.com. Follow Battery on Twitter at @BatteryVentures.

About Rho Ventures

Rho Ventures (www.rho.com) has a multi-stage investing strategy focused on high-growth companies in large markets. Rho Ventures' investments span new media, healthcare, IT, communications, energy technology and other disruptive technologies. Rho Ventures brings nearly 30 years of venture experience, combined with its partners' deep sector expertise and its far-reaching network to assist each portfolio company. This approach has allowed Rho to participate in the growth of some of today's most innovative and successful companies, including Active Power, Capstone Turbine, Ciena, Compaq Computer, EverydayHealth.com, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, Human Genome Sciences, IntraLinks, iVillage, MedImmune, ReachLocal, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Tacoda. Rho Ventures is currently investing from Rho Ventures VI, a $510 million fund. The firm has offices in Palo Alto, Calif., New York and Montreal, with investments across the globe.

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