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We are delighted to have led Amber’s seed round.
Amber is building a technology-enabled energy company the likes of which the world has never seen before. Its mission is to empower each of us to save our planet through driving greater use of renewable energy.
Another energy company? I hate those guys…
Exactly. We tend to hate our energy retailer even more than our than our telco, internet, insurance, water and banking providers. The search for an energy provider involves trying to decode opaque pricing models and ‘discounts’ that make it hard to compare apples with apples. Once we choose our energy provider and connect our homes, the only real interactions we have with them are when we get complex and expensive bills. The result of these less-than-delightful interactions is industry customer churn as high as 20-30% p.a.
This negative customer sentiment is also acknowledged by the Australian Energy Regulator (’AER’), which commented that the energy market “has developed in a manner that is not conducive to consumers being able to make efficient and effective decisions about the range of available offers [from retailers]”. The AER also commented that pricing is “set at levels designed to profit from customer confusion and inertia”.
For many years little has changed from the consumer’s perspective.
Remarkably, though, in parallel there has been a momentous change occurring in the energy supply market: it is transforming to a lower emissions power sector with increasing contributions from wind and solar generation. More than 20% of total electricity is already generated from renewable sources in Australia currently, and the shift away from fossil fuels is accelerating. There is more cheap and clean energy available today than ever before.
However, customers have been unable to extract value from the cleaner, cheaper renewable energy in the system or maximise the value on purchases like household batteries or electric vehicles because of the incumbent’s static pricing models and low fixed feed-in tariffs.
Put simply, while the price at which traditional energy retailers “buy” energy to sell to you (the wholesale price) changes every half hour during the day based on the source of that energy (renewable energy = cheap; dirty energy = typically more expensive), the price they “sell” it to you at is largely fixed and completely detached from the underlying wholesale price.
In fact, traditional retailers make the most money when they can buy cheap energy (sometimes, unbelievably, at negative cost!) and sell it to you at a fixed price tariff. And there is nothing to reward you as a customer for using energy at times when it drives utilisation of cleaner sources. It’s time to level the playing field. It’s time to give the power back to the people.
Enter Amber
Amber has developed its business model and value proposition to align with customer interests, and to drive down electricity costs while driving up the use of clean, renewable energy.
Amber provides electricity to customers at the wholesale market price, without any mark-up. It instead charges its customers a flat fee of $10/month.
Amber brings transparency to an industry that is otherwise clear as mud and, importantly, aligns the customer’s interests with its own. Unlike traditional energy companies, Amber is incentivised to help drive down your energy bills and uses technology to optimise your energy consumption to take advantage of cheaper, cleaner energy when it is available.
Amber is on a mission to make it cheaper for people to use renewables in order to create lasting impact on our planet.
Team Amber
Amber is the brainchild of Chris Thompson and Dan Adams. We have known Chris and Dan for several years. They are two exceptional founders who first met when they worked together at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
Since BCG, Chris has been the MD of Bamilo, Iran’s largest e-Commerce marketplace, and Dan led the development of Tesla’s South Australian Virtual Power Plant. When Dan was younger, he was awarded Victorian Young Australian of the Year for founding the Make Poverty History concert.
Chris and Dan embody many of the traits we look for: they are mission-driven, incredibly bright and ambitious founders who are deeply motivated to change our world for the better. We are excited to be on this journey with them.
This is a revolution. Powered by smarts. Amplified by you. #powertothepeople
See more: https://www.amberelectric.com.au/
