Itron, an American technology company that sells innovative IoT sensor technologies and edge computing analytics from the Itron Riva platform, signed a definitive agreement to acquire Comverge in a cash transaction valued at approximately $100 million. Itron sells gas, water, electricity and smart cities solutions.
Comverge provides integrated demand management solutions for electric utilities. It sells hardware, software, and services.
Comverge’s acquisition will enable Itron to deploy demand management solutions to the edge of the network. This will be achieved using OpenWay Riva’s edge intelligence and processing capabilities. The buyout also makes sense as Comverge solutions (includes hardware and software) are already deployed in nearly 3 million energy management devices. Add to it the $60M revenues Comverge generated in 2016.
The journey for Comverge was not linear. It pivoted from a hardware-oriented demand response company to a software and services company focused which decreased its customer churn and increased revenue per customer. The rise in demand for Comverge-type solutions is due to the need for near-real-time data required by utility companies. It helps run predictive and prescriptive analytics on top of their data.
Itron will host a webcast on May 8, 2017, at 12:00 p.m. EDT to discuss Comverge’s planned acquisition.
