Costa Mesa-based startup EPS Corp., which makes software that helps companies cut down on energy costs, said Thursday it landed a $30 million round of venture funding.
EPS raised about $20 million in an initial round, for a total of $50 million raised to date.
Denver-based Altira Group LLC led the round. It also included prior investors Ngen Partners, a Santa Barbara private equity group focused on green technology, and Robeco NV, the investment arm of the Netherlands’ Rabobank Group.
The company, started by a group of former Enron Corp. employees, works with manufacturers, small companies and big corporations to cut energy costs by installing equipment, outsourcing operations and securing government rebates.
The money is set to be used to fund acquisitions and expand EPS’ software, which provides companies with data about how much energy they use and their carbon dioxide emissions.
“We look at this as really validating our approach to energy intelligence,” said Chief Executive Jay Zoellner.
The company’s software measures usage of electricity, heating gas, water and wastewater output and tracks the weather.
“You have to measure to manage,” Zoellner said. “The idea is to make all that information visible and do it across a portfolio of sites.”
Locally, it has worked with the Buena Park operations of Dallas-based Dean Foods Co., making its milk and ice cream warehouses more efficient.
Last year, EPS bought three power plants used by Dean Foods in City of Industry and Massachusetts for undisclosed terms. The purchase includes a 10-year, $100 million deal to provide energy to Dean Foods.
The plants conserve energy by taking wasted heat and turning it into steam and hot water.
At Irvine-based Royalty Carpet Mills Inc., EPS took excess heat from the carpet maker’s piston engines and put it to use boiling water and drying carpet.
Royalty also installed a monitoring system to track electricity, natural gas, water and weather conditions.
EPS had 2008 sales of $25 million, and it has been doubling sales every year since its 2001 start, according to Zoellner.
The company is on track to see $50 million in sales this year, he said. Zoellner declined to say if the company was profitable.
EPS has about 70 workers and could add as many as 50 this year, half of them local.
Rivals of EPS include Framingham, Mass.-based Ameresco Inc. and OnSite Energy Corp. in Carlsbad.
Zoellner got his start in energy management as a submarine officer in the Navy.
He later served as Southwest regional director for Enron. After the company’s 2001 bankruptcy, he got together with three former colleagues to form EPS, which was then called Energy and Power Solutions Inc.
Shiva Subramanya is EPS’ chief business development officer. Staffan Akerstrom is chief operations officer. George Botich is a vice president.
