Power play: Amber charges up on $78.5 million Series E for global push. Amber grabs $78.5m to take its battery/EV energy trading play global, starting with Europe. Renewable energy supplier Amber Electric has raised $78.5 million in a Series E, nearly doubling its round size plan as it looks to expand globally. The raise was led by 1GT, Morgan Stanley's climate tech fund, with support from existing investors ETF Partners (Environmental Technologies Fund), state government backed Innovation Victoria and E.ON. Amber has built Australia's largest residential battery automation product, with around half the local market. Cofounder and co-CEO Chris Thompson said they'll use the funds to double down on expansion across Europe. "We've built the winning energy automation platform in Australia, and this funding will enable us to extend our leadership across Europe," he said. "Our partnership with E.ON is already showing what's possible, and we're excited to build on that momentum with more partners across the region." Get the best of Startup Daily straight to your inbox. Alongside giving subscribers access to real-time wholesale electricity prices, Amber's platform also lets people with a home battery - or one on wheels in an EVs to renewable power from the grid when it's cheaper, and sell excess energy back to the grid at the same price as large generators earn when prices spike. In June, federal government renewables investor ARENA backed Amber with $13.6 million to expand its vehicle-to-grid (V2G) program in 1,000 homes. Amber is now releasing the next generation of this technology, including vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functionality, which is letting early customers earn money by selling energy from their EV back to the grid when it's needed most. UK utility E.ON Next tipped in $10m 12 months ago and the Amber platform underpinned its launch for British battery and solar households in March 2026 this year. Founded in 2017 Amber's last major raise was $45 million Series D in June 2025, following a $29 million in a Series C in early 2024, as well as a $33.4 million Series B that spanned 2021-22. The cap table also includes CBA, Square Peg, Main Sequence and motoring mutual the NRMA. 1GT's Vikram Raju said they were keen to support the broader transformation of electricity systems in Australia and Europe. "We believe the company's innovative platform, talented team and clear strategic vision position it well to capitalise on the growing need for distributed energy solutions across global markets," he said.

Amber raises $78.5m to supercharge its international leadership in battery automation. Published: September 21, 2026 In the Spotlight Amber has closed a $78.5 million Series E funding round to accelerate its growth in Australia and its expansion into global markets. The nearly twice oversubscribed round was led by 1GT, Morgan Stanley's climate tech fund, with strong participation from existing backers Environmental Technologies Fund (ETF Partners), Innovation Victoria and E.ON. This investment builds on Amber's momentum in Australia, where its technology was developed in the world's leading market for home battery uptake. Amber has become the largest residential battery automation product in the country, orchestrating more than half of automated home batteries in Australia. "This additional capital positions Amber to double down on our expansion across Europe," said Chris Thompson, co-founder and co-CEO of Amber. "We've built the winning energy automation platform in Australia, and this funding will enable us to extend our leadership across Europe. Our partnership with E.ON is already showing what's possible, and we're excited to build on that momentum with more partners across the region." Amber gives customers access to real-time wholesale electricity prices and the technology to automate their home batteries and EVs, charging when cheap renewable energy is available and earning money by discharging when prices spike. "We are pleased to partner with Chris and Dan to help accelerate Amber's next phase of development and support the broader transformation of electricity systems in Australia and Europe," said Vikram Raju, Head of Climate Private Equity Investing at Morgan Stanley Investment Management and 1GT. "We believe the company's innovative platform, talented team and clear strategic vision position it well to capitalize on the growing need for distributed energy solutions across global markets." Amber's technology already underpins Next Optimise, E.ON Next's smart energy tariff and home battery and EV automation product, which launched in March 2026 and is now live for battery and solar households across the UK. Amber is now releasing the next generation of this technology, including vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functionality, which is letting early customers earn money by selling energy from their EV back to the grid when it's needed most. The opportunity to unlock more value for both energy consumers and utilities is attracting major partners across Australia and Europe, as the energy industry moves towards a smarter, more flexible energy system. The $78.5 million investment will give Amber the capital to scale its technology in Australia, expand across European markets and continue investing in the products and infrastructure needed to put households at the centre of the energy transition. Hannah Pemberton PR & Comms Lead

EV charging and the grid: the questions from Shape Shifters. Published: August 14, 2026 Amber's Senior Product Manager, Nicholas Wodzinski, spoke at the "EVs everywhere" session at Shape Shifters in Melbourne this week, a half-day event run by The Energy on how demand for electricity is changing. The session looked at EV growth and its impact on the grid, with a live Q&A from key industry leaders in the room. Amber wanted to share some of the insights with you too. Q. I'm interested in the interaction between EVs and home batteries where households have both. What impact does this have on the charging experience? NW: The key structural difference is that the EV is a transport asset first, so mobility needs act as hard constraints. A Ready By target (80% by 8am, for example) must be satisfied before any energy arbitrage logic applies, whereas a home battery has no equivalent constraint and can be optimised purely for the home. Once that hard constraint is met, there are secondary considerations like solar routing: whether excess solar goes to the battery to cover the evening peak, or to the car to progress EV charging. Amber is building that coordination logic into SmartShift to cater for the different preferences of customers and the scenarios they may be in. Q. Beyond wholesale, can Amber access trial network tariffs, and would this change optimal charging strategy? NW: Yes. Amber pass through the applicable DNSP tariff alongside wholesale, and Amber is actively working with networks around the NEM on trial tariffs, including time-windowed network fee discounts. These change the optimal charging window, which is precisely the point: they align customer incentives with network conditions. If you're a DNSP considering trial tariffs, Amber'd like to hear from you. More info on the work Amber is doing on two-way tariffs is outlined here. Q. Should the wholesale price reflect the carbon content of power? NW: Roughly, it already does. Abundant supply periods are cheap and renewable-heavy, so price and carbon intensity are correlated most of the time in practice. Q. How does Amber achieve trust and simple offers for CER access? NW: Amber is built around two mechanisms. First, incentive alignment: passing through the wholesale price means the market's signal, cheap when abundant, which is when it's renewable, becomes the customer's signal too. Second, automation. SmartShift combines wholesale price forecasts, weather and a learned profile of the home's load to coordinate solar, batteries and EVs, with more asset types (hot water, HVAC, pool pumps) plausible in future. The customer has override control throughout. What that means is that while the way Amber works under the hood can be a little complicated, customers don't need to understand or engage with that complexity to get value from their home setup. Q. Sceptical consumer: won't the cost and effort involved in setting up clever EV charging just boost retailer profit without benefit to me? NW: In a traditional retail model, plausibly yes. A retailer with a margin on usage and volume has incentives that can diverge from yours when it's controlling your assets. Amber's model removes that misalignment. How much energy you use, and when, doesn't change what Amber earns, since Amber pass through wholesale and charge a flat subscription. The broader point is that retail models can be designed so customer value and retailer value aren't mutually exclusive, and Amber is proof of how innovation like this can challenge assumptions of that kind. More info on how Amber's wholesale price passthrough works here. Q. Has Amber looked at operating or partnering with EV fast charging stations with variable pricing? NW: Somewhere between 80 and 90% of EV charging happens at home, and as an energy retailer that's predominantly been its focus to date for EVs. Public charging, both journey charging and destination charging, is a necessary part of the transition and deserves investment, but it hasn't been the charging segment Amber has invested in to date. Q. How do Amber get cheap daytime charging where cars are parked (street, office, train)? Isn't this a necessity for evening discharge confidence? NW: Charging away from home could help here, but it's not a necessity for most people. Around 80 to 90% of charging is at home. Charging at work and discharging at home treats the car as an energy carrier. Even a household that's never home on weekdays can capture solar-to-vehicle value on weekends, carrying a charge picked up when solar generation is high during the day back home for self-consumption. For households genuinely absent all day, a home battery is often the better-fitted asset, since it's home when the solar is. Bidirectional EV charging may make sense for some households and not others. Q. What are the realistic options for street charging, and could these customers have managed charging? NW: I think the main variable here is dwell time. At fast-charging sites, load management already exists but serves connection-level and customer-experience purposes: you want dynamic allocation of switchboard headroom (500kW across 8 plugs, say) rather than fixed 60kW caps per head, which products like Kempower's satellite architecture handle well. If you arrive as the only EV across 8 plugs, you want to be able to pull around 200kW, or whatever the max your car can take, not be limited to 60kW. Grid-oriented managed charging becomes viable where dwell times are long, such as hotels or long-stay parking. Here, charging can be shifted out of the evening peak into optimal overnight windows via OCPP load profiles and local dynamic operating envelopes, but from the driver's side it's simple: if you plug your EV in at a hotel overnight, you don't really care whether it charges during the evening peak, only that you've got a high charge the next day when you need the car in the morning. Thanks to The Energy for having Amber and for putting on a great event. If you've got questions of your own about EV charging with Amber, head to its EV page for more.