(Updated: 9:55 a.m.)
EAST GREENWICH – VoltServer Inc., a digital electricity technology startup, has raised another $5 million equity round to expand its existing business.
The round, dubbed a Series A-3, was led by the private-equity firm Marker Hill Capital LLC. VoltServer, based in East Greenwich, raised a similar sized round in 2015, also led by Marker Hill.
VoltServer has now raised about $15.9 million in private equity since incorporating in 2011, and the business strategy moving forward is largely to stay the course and grow.
“The purpose of the raise was to expand our existing business of providing digital electricity technology to power information and communications data infrastructure,” Stephen S. Eaves, VoltServer founder and CEO, wrote in an email.
VoltServer officially opened in 2013 and is developing digital electricity, which is a new way of distributing power.
Eaves explained the process in a 2016 interview with Providence Business News.
“Much like music and data [have] moved from an analog to digital format over the last couple of decades, VoltServer has created a natively digital form of electricity using a protocol we invented called Packet Energy Transfer,” he said.
“Even at high voltages and power levels it can be touched without causing a shock and can detect if even a minute amount of energy is lost to say a poor connection or short circuit,” he added. “It also contains embedded data to monitor and control things. Because of these characteristics, digital electricity is safer, smarter, faster and much less expensive to install than the conventional format.”
VoltServer is already powering 4G/LTE mobile services in several facilities. The company has installed technology in nearly 300 major venues, including eight National Football League stadiums and dozens of high-rise buildings.
Voltserver has also attracted notable sized investment rounds for a Rhode Island startup, where venture capital is at-times scant.
The Slater Technology Fund, a Providence-based publicly funded venture capital firm, was an early investor of VoltServer.
Eaves, who has more than two decades of experience in the energy systems field, previously founded two other companies.
He has 15 patents issued or pending related to energy storage and power conversation.
Eli Sherman is a PBN staff writer. Email him at Sherman@PBN.com, or follow him on Twitter @Eli_Sherman.
