Calgary startup looks to provide commercial analytics for renewable energy investors

Source: Jeffrey Jones · THE GLOBE AND MAIL · | May 18, 2021

Source: Pixabay

A technology startup targeting major investors in renewable energy projects is the latest Calgary-based venture seeking to capitalize on the energy transition.

Orennia provides a host of commercial analytics for investment and capital allocation in wind, solar and other renewable projects. It has just closed a funding round that attracted U.S. investors associated with the fossil fuel sector. Chief executive officer Brook Papau declined to give the precise figure, but said the Series A round raised “in the high single figures” of millions of U.S. dollars.

It marks the latest in a rush of investments in Calgary’s technology and cleantech sectors, a bright spot in a local economy that has been hit hard by a half decade of downturn in oil and gas and worsened during the pandemic. As former colleagues at another tech firm, Mr. Papau and Orennia co-founder Tanya Baeza, who is chief financial officer, are showing how the city’s’ tech sector is maturing by creating the next generation of companies.

The two worked at RS Energy, which was sold last year to U.S. data analytics company Enverus as one of a handful of Calgary tech firms that fetched US$1-billion or more.

“Fundamentally Calgary is a city that likes to get to work and solve problems and there’s a lot of engineering talent in Calgary as well. There’s a deep entrepreneurial streak that runs through the city, and it’s not necessarily tied to oil and gas,” said Mr. Papau, whose background is in oil and gas energy research.

“We’re finding we’re able to attract highly talented individuals in the city, and the costs here are some of the lowest that you can get in any kind of major city in North America, so financially it makes a lot of sense. And we’ve been able to attract investment dollars as well to our startup. So I think others are kind of coming to that conclusion as well.”