Tata Power and Social Alpha invests in Industrial IoT startup ‘URJA’

Tata Power and Social Alpha have announced investment in Industrial IOT startup ‘URJA’ – an innovative solution consisting of Smart Sensors and Analytics platform founded by Saurabh Jhamb and Anant Jhawar in 2017. With the infusion of new investment, the company aims to scale up its sales strategy, expand B2B business and strengthen their back-end technology using advanced artificial intelligence/machine learning capabilities.

URJA has been awarded a patent on the sensor technology and analytics platform that generates ‘real-time actionable insights’ for factory floor monitoring & automation. The URJA sensors manufactured in-house have enabled small and medium businesses to save on their electricity consumption by detecting energy losses and predicting maintenance of production machinery. With this offering, Tata Power aims to be a fully integrated Energy as a Service (EaaS) solution provider with niche Smart Energy Management offerings. Tata Power believes in emerging technologies which can help commercial & industrial users to efficiently manage their energy consumption through its offerings .

“We are glad to strengthen our partnership with a deep tech company like URJA. It shares our goal of delivering enhanced value-added energy management experience for customers. With this seed support, we look forward to creating a robust solutions to offer newer services to our customers in the space of energy consumption and optimization.” said Dr Praveer Sinha, CEO & MD, Tata Power.

According to Founders , URJA is estimated to potentially save over USD 2 billion through its patented Sensors & Analytics platform and has already tracked ?20 Cr worth energy consumption through URJA EcoSense till now.

“We are just scratching the surface of how powerful device-level insights can be when it’s offered at a massive scale to a Manufacturing & Power ecosystem. The financial backing of Social Alpha and Tata Power will help us execute our vision even more rapidly and build scalable products, learning from experience, perspective and relationships of a leading Power Company,” said Saurabh Jhamb, Chief Executive Officer, URJA.

RISE Institute Sweden has estimated that device-level energy innovations such as URJA have potential to enable the avoidance of 13 MtCO2e per year by 2030. URJA is being incubated since 2019 at Social Alpha’s Clean Energy International Incubation Centre (CEIIC), a joint initiative of Government of India and Tata Trusts, and supported by Department of Biotechnology (DBT), BIRAC, Tata Power and Tata Power-DDL. CEIIC is India’s first international incubator in clean energy under the aegis of Mission Innovation.

Manoj Kumar, Founder and CEO of Social Alpha, said, “We incubated URJA at our Clean Energy Lab – Clean Energy International Incubation Centre in 2019. We have, since then, seen their progress and commitment to build an energy efficient future with their patented sensor technology innovation. At Social Alpha, we are committed heavily to strengthen our investments in clean energy and climate tech start-ups as the world combats climate crisis. With our co-investment in URJA alongside Tata Power, the company will have access to our entire ecosystem of technology and business offerings and investor network to help them become growth-ready. The future is bright for clean energy start-ups and we can’t wait to see the journey unfold for URJA.”

This follows a spurt of investment in IoT & Smart Sensor technologies by leading global corporates during the coronavirus lockdown.