Climate tech company Arcadia is now a unicorn

Just a few weeks after Upside achieved unicorn status mark, DC’s Arcadia is following suit: The renewable energy tech company announced a $200 million funding round today, valuing the company at $1.45 billion.

The round was led by JP Morgan Asset Management’s Sustainability Growth Equity Team as part of a $2.5 trillion commitment to fund the low-carbon economy over the next decade. New investors Keyframe Capital, Broadscale Group and Triangle Peak Partners joined existing partners Camber Creek, MCJ Collective, Tiger Global Management, Wellington Management, Salesforce Ventures and Drawdown Fund to take part in the round.

The company intends to use the funds to scale up its Arc platform for energy and utility data. Kate Henningsen, Arcadia’s COO and cofounder, said that this funding and push from Arcadia is the latest move to power the zero carbon economy, which she believes is crucial for solving climate change issues.

“I started seven years ago now on this journey and [the industry] was not like this a few years ago,” Henningsen told Technical.ly. “Having this type of capital, this recognition definitely shows that we’re in a new era — which we need to be in a new era because we have a really big problem to solve.”

To date, the company has raised $385 million. This new investment offers it the chance to take on a global problem with speed and urgency, Henningsen said. With this in mind, Arcadia plans to focus on building out its software platform. Arc provides data from utilities across the country, as well as insights into renewable energy data and sources.

In addition to these developments, the company will invest in sales and marketing resources and hiring R&D software engineers to continue building out the platform. Henningsen, while unsure exactly how many positions would be added, expects hundreds of new hires in the next few years, with about 50% located in the DC area. Making renewable and clean energy more tech-friendly, she thinks, is a game-changer.

“Having a software company in energy ready to unleash a force that we’ve seen work in fintech, healthcare and [insurance] tech — which is data and digitization — I think that’s a huge moment for this sector,” Henningsen said.

Arcadia also plans to put this new investment toward expanding its coverage into commercial utility data. The new funding also follows a strong period of growth for the renewable energy tech company; Henningsen said Arcadia grew 155% year over year in revenue. Its Arc platform has also reached a milestone of 700 megawatts of energy managed. And last fall, the company managed to raise $100 million in September before acquiring Colorado’s iSolar in November. According to its website, companies as varied as Ford, Airbnb and Goldman Sachs have partnered with Arcadia.

Henningsen attributes this growth to the company’s position at the intersection of sustainability and software, which she thinks are two of the largest trends for the decade. She hopes to see even more growth in the climate tech ecosystem.

“I can’t wait to see what people can do with this, because we have a hundred companies right now using it,” Henningsen said. “And there’s going to be a thousand new things that I don’t even have any idea of what people are gonna do, and I think that’s how we start to fix the problem we have. It’s really an all-hands-on-deck effort.”