depsys

About depsys

depsys, a Swiss technology firm founded in 2012, operates at the forefront of the energy sector's digital transformation. It was established as a spin-off from the School of Business and Engineering Vaud (HEIG-VD) by three engineers: Michael De Vivo, Joël Jaton, and Guillaume Besson, who connected over a shared passion for entrepreneurship and energy during a master's project. The company specializes in empowering electricity grid managers, specifically Distribution System Operators (DSOs), to modernize their low and medium-voltage networks.

The core of depsys' offering is GridEye, a comprehensive platform that combines hardware and software to provide real-time monitoring, control, and analysis of power distribution grids. This system enables DSOs to gain unprecedented visibility into their grid's performance, which is crucial for managing the complexities introduced by the increasing integration of decentralized energy resources (DERs) like solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle charging stations. The hardware component consists of sensors and field devices that are installed in locations like secondary substations and street cabinets to perform high-precision measurements of voltage and current. The software component, embedded in the hardware for edge computing, processes this data, allowing for real-time analysis, fault detection, and automated control actions without constant reliance on a central system. This distributed intelligence approach helps maintain grid stability and power quality.

The business model centers on providing these technology solutions to DSOs worldwide, with a revenue model based on licensing the use of the GridEye platform. By digitalizing their grids with GridEye, operators can avoid costly and time-consuming physical infrastructure upgrades, with depsys analysis suggesting digitization can be up to 700 times cheaper. The platform's modular and scalable design allows clients to adopt the technology incrementally. A key milestone for the company was its acquisition in November 2022 by Kraken, part of the UK's Octopus Energy Group, a move intended to integrate GridEye's capabilities into Kraken's broader flexibility platform. Prior to the acquisition, depsys had raised approximately $18.4 million through several funding rounds, with notable investors including BNP Paribas, Statkraft Ventures, and SET Ventures.