Tata Power, Social Alpha Back Industrial IoT Startup Urja

Tata Power and venture development platform Social Alpha have announced an investment in industrial IoT startup URJA. With the deal, Tata Power aims to become a fully integrated energy-as-a-service (EaaS) provider with smart energy management offerings.

Founded by Saurabh Jhamb and Anant Jhawar in 2017, URJA develops internet of things devices for energy analytics in industrial manufacturing applications. It uses its patented maintenance-free sensors to help improve efficiency in industrial operations. Currently, it caters to industrial manufacturing, thermal and hydropower plants, as well as industrial heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. 

“We are just scratching the surface of how powerful device-level insights can be when it’s offered at a massive scale to a manufacturing & power ecosystem,” said Saurabh Jhamb, CEO, URJA.

With the infusion of new funds, the company aims to scale up its sales strategy, expand B2B business and strengthen their back-end technology using advanced artificial intelligence/machine learning capabilities.

According to Tata Power’s statement, URJA is estimated to potentially save over $2 Bn through its patented sensors and analytics platform and has already tracked INR 20 Cr worth energy consumption through URJA EcoSense till now. 

Tata Power’s investment follows a spurt of investment in IoT startups by leading global corporates during the coronavirus-induced lockdown last year. Many companies are focusing on IoT to improve efficiencies in industrial setups without human intervention. 

With the growing penetration of IoT across various industries, dependence on IoT-enabled sensors that allow communication between devices has increased significantly. However, in India, the IoT-enabled sensors market is mainly dominated by global players that operate through their units. 

In India, startups such as Altizon, Hero Electonix-acquired Zenatix, Infinite Uptime, Skylo, Smart Joules are working in the energy-focused industrial IoT segment. Besides these, renewable energy company ReNew Power and Bengaluru-based smart building solution provider 75F has also made inroads in this space, however, there is a lot of room for growth. 

According to IoT-enabled Sensors Market in India 2019 report by research and markets, The IoT-enabled sensors market in India is poised to expand at a CAGR of about 62.96% to reach a value of INR 81.07 Bn by 2024, from INR 4.83 Bn in 2018.

RISE Institute Sweden has estimated that device-level energy innovations such as URJA have the potential to enable the avoidance of 13 MtCO2e per year by 2030. URJA is being incubated since 2019 at Social Alpha’s Clean Energy International Incubation Centre (CEIIC), a joint initiative of the Government of India and Tata Trusts, and supported by the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), BIRAC, Tata Power and Tata Power-DDL.