Copper Labs raises Series A, plans to double team

BOULDER — Flush with $5.5 million in Series A funding, Copper Labs Inc., a startup developing real-time utility-monitoring devices, plans to double its team as the company prepares to bring its next-generation product to market. 

Copper Labs’ team of nine — most of whom work in Boulder — has spent years focused on research and development “and didn’t have to have a big go-to-market team,” Copper Labs’ CEO Dan Forman told BizWest. “Now that we’ve got the right product at the right time, we’re ready to pour on and double our team across sales, marketing and product [development divisions] this year as part of our use of these proceeds.”

The Series A round was led by Clean Energy Ventures, with participation from other existing investors. 

The fundraiser comes on the heels of a pair of $2 million seed rounds in 2021 and 2019.

Copper Labs has achieved a “significant evolution of the product” from in-home hardware that requires a connection to the utility customer’s wifi to a device that’s located outdoors on a utility pole with the ability to collect data from hundreds of homes, Forman said.

“It’s a game-changer for utilities that need to modernize faster than typical solutions would allow,” he said.

A pilot program for the new product is set for this year with commercial deployment anticipated in 2023. 

Forman said he expects to raise a Series B round next year to help fund the commercialization scale up.

As part of the investment, Copper Labs has also added former Federal Energy Regulatory Commission member and Clean Energy Ventures partner Nora Mead Brownell to its board of directors. 

“As a leader in the regulatory environment for utilities over the last 20-plus years, she sees the opportunity and challenge we’re trying to solve,” Forman said.

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