Rome, 31/01/2024 – Renewcast, an innovative Italian start-up specialising in advanced wind power generation forecasting, is proud to announce the successful closing of a funding round worth approximately 850,000 euro. The round was led by Helen Venture (Finland) and included the participation of co-investor Tech4Planet, the National Technology Transfer Hub for Environmental Sustainability launched by CDP Venture Capital SGR. The round also saw the continued support of the founding team and previous investors Beamline Fund and Mindtitan, the latter acting as strategic technology development partner.

Renewcast

Renewcast is at the forefront of wind generation forecasting technology with its proprietary AI/Deep Learning SaaS platform, which offers exceptional short-term and intraday forecasting performance.

Fabio Nicolò, CEO and founder of Renewcast, said: “We are thrilled and honoured by the trust and support shown by Helen Venture, Tech4Planet and all our existing partners and investors. This funding will significantly accelerate our market penetration and boost our technological capabilities, allowing us to serve a global portfolio of corporate customers with our fully automated Azure Cloud-based platform”.

Mikael Myllymaki, Vice President of Corporate Venture Capital at Helen and Investor Manager at Helen Venture added that: “Wind forecasting represents a significant market opportunity, especially in the context of fluctuating energy prices and increasing customer interest. The outstanding forecasting performance of Renewcast – confirmed by our wind team – was a decisive factor in our investment decision."

Claudia Pingue, Head of CDP Venture Capital SGR's Technology Transfer Fund, explained that: “The reliability of wind forecasts is crucial for the sustainable transition to renewable energy. The global market potential combined with the significant experience and extensive market knowledge of the Renewcast team made this a compelling investment, further strengthened by strong validation from some of Italy’s leading utilities."

Renewcast has already demonstrated its technology with more than 500 MW of wind turbines installed in Italy and across Europe. Customers such as Utilitas Wind in Latvia have already subscribed to the commercial service after completing the pilot test, recognising the superior reliability of Renewcast’s forecasts.

Renars Urbanovics, board member of Utilitas Wind Latvia, explained that: “The reliability of Renewcast's forecasts is 20-30% better than our benchmark. We are fully confident in the value we receive from Renewcast’s services, which is why we immediately signed a premium price/premium performance contract with shared forecasting risk”.

The successful completion of this seed round was supported by the team at Avvocati.Net (Alessandro M. Lerro, Matteo Panizza, Giulio De Bruno) for Renewcast, and the team from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (Europe) LLP (Attilio Mazzilli, Alessandro Vittoria, Pietro Fazzini, Claudia Francesca Micol Cirinà), representing Helen Venture.

Founded in 2020, Renewcast is emerging as a game-changer in the wind power generation forecasting sector with its cutting-edge Deep Learning SaaS platform. The company has won awards such as the “Pre-Seed Call” and Boost Your Ideas from Lazio Innova, and is part of the Beamline Accelerator portfolio, which has significantly contributed to its current success. Supported by MindTitan as its strategic technology partner, Renewcast’s dynamic leadership team is driving the company toward global leadership in renewable energy forecasting services.

The team includes CEO and Co-Founder Fabio Nicolò, with over 28 years of management consulting experience in the energy sector in Italy, Europe and the US, and an Executive MBA from Stanford, USA; Ugo Mattoni, CCO & Co-Founder, with over 35 years in the energy sector in Italy and Europe, and an MBA from Luiss Business School; Sibghat Ullah, Senior Engineer and Co-Founder of ML, with over five years of experience in IT, data science, AI engineering and ML, and a PhD in data science and a master in computer science; and Marco Piscopiello, Product Optimisation Lead, with over 12 years of experience in the energy sector, energy and demand forecasting, data science and data architectures.