GE’s investment in Sonnen shows a shared belief in online trading of energy and other digitally-enabled services as the fastest potential drivers of a profitable energy storage industry, according to a Sonnen director.

GE Ventures, the venture capital arm of US-headquartered multinational engineering group GE, has invested in German energy storage hardware and services provider Sonnen.

Texas-headquarted Mercom Capital Group recently released its Q1 2016 funding and M&A report for energy storage, smart grid and energy efficiency sectors. Mercom’s CEO and co-founder Raj Prabhu discusses the energy storage trends tracked in this quarter with Energy-Storage.News, especially in light of the drop in venture capital funding this quarter.

Mercom Capital Group’s Q1 2016 report reveals 50% drop in VC funding for battery and storage companies compared to last quarter’s figures.

Almost US$700 million of corporate funding went into energy storage in 2015, including US$397 million from venture capital (VC) investment, according to the latest report from Mercom Capital.

PV Tech Storage spoke to Nancy Pfund of ‘social impact’ investors DBL Partners, among Tesla’s early backers and participants in two of the top five VC fund plays of this year’s third quarter.

Mercom Capital Group’s second quarter 2015 report into VC funding in the energy storage, smart grid and energy efficiency sectors made for interesting reading for the battery and storage space. As PV Tech Storage noted on 21 July from the report, VC funding almost doubled over the first quarter of the year and the sector saw Arnold Schwarzenegger put his money where his green credentials are, bringing some celebrity investor gloss to the proceedings. PV Tech Storage spoke to Mercom Capital chief Raj Prabhu to delve deeper into the statistics.

Venture capital (VC) funding for battery and energy storage companies totalled US$126 million in the second quarter of this year, almost doubling Q1’s US$69 million total raised, according to a report from Mercom Capital Group.

Investment by UK tech entrepreneur and inventor James Dyson into battery company Sakti3 was among the biggest deals in the sector in the first quarter of this year, a new report has found.

Energy storage and battery companies netted US$418 million in funding, while a further US$232 million changed hands in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of battery or storage companies during 2014, according to a new report from Mercom Capital.