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Orkestra, a Melbourne-based feasibility software provider for the energy sector, has secured $2.77 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to help fast-track a $5.5 million roll out of commercial electric vehicle (EV) chargers across Australia.
The software startup, which was founded in 2021, has partnered with AGL, EnergyAustralia, RACV, RAA and CBRE for the co-funded software project which aims to bring forward EV charger deployment by three years which Orkestra says will accelerate investment and reduce dependence on government subsidies.
The funding is part of ARENA’s Driving the Nation Program and will play a key role in ensuring that commercial EV charging can scale to meet demand for electric vehicles.
“Orkestra are really driving innovation, and technology like this will play a valuable role in the clean energy transition,” says Darren Miller, the CEO of ARENA.
“By investing in and supporting emerging Australian companies and ideas, ARENA is able to drive both economic growth and our efforts to meet critical climate goals.
“Orkestra's feasibility modelling software will provide the tools needed by businesses to better understand the financial performance of EV chargers, ultimately accelerating their deployment and supporting our goals of decarbonising transport."
Founded by James Allston, Chris Cooper and Michael Jurasovic, Orkestra’s software combines domain expertise with mathematics and data science to provide advanced modelling capabilities to provide data-driven decision-making in the clean energy sector.
“Our vision is to build trust in EV charging as a bankable investment by providing tools that give operators and investors an accurate understanding of the financial performance of existing and new commercial EV charger assets,” says Allston, the co-CEO of Orkestra.
“This will not only speed up deployment but also improve the profitability of assets, making EV charging a more attractive opportunity for businesses across Australia similar to what we’ve seen in the C&I [commercial and industrial] solar and battery segment over the last few years.”
Orkestra, which has raised $3.3 million in seed and pre-seed funding, is backed by Tidal Ventures, Rampersand, Impact Ventures and Luxem, as well as climate tech investors Phil Blythe, Danin Kahn, Oliver Hartley and Andrew Rogers.
Phil Blythe has been advising the Orkestra team for the past three years and claims it is carving out a new category of high-performance tools that make developing commercial-scale renewable energy projects more accessible for energy providers and solar installers.
The clean tech company provides user-friendly feasibility analysis software for the commercial solar and battery market which the company says makes it easier to model and present investment opportunities for new energy projects.
The new software developed will be purpose-built for EV charger projects, enabling businesses to analyse the feasibility of commercial EV charging stations, track ongoing financial performance and provide a platform for continual optimisation.
Orkestra’s software solutions will support various stakeholders, including fleet operators, public charging networks, and destination charging sites such as hotels and workplaces.
The company says it is currently looking for potential users for its beta project and has one project partner opportunity available to an owner or operator of EV charger assets.
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