Birketts completes £250K seed investment on behalf of Cumulus Energy Storage Limited

£250K was raised with backing from investors as far ranging as Switzerland, Guernsey, London and Yorkshire with the founders based in the USA and UK. Andrew Wood, head of energy, led the transaction with assistance from the corporate, employment, corporate tax and property teams.

CES is enabling renewable electricity by developing the lowest-cost grid-level energy storage battery globally. It aims to bring down the cost of supply of energy and has developed prototype battery technology which can be developed commercially to cope with the rigours and requirements of the renewable industry to meet the challenge of providing for consumers low cost reliable renewable energy. The commercial venture is supported by a grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) with research in San Francisco and manufacturing near the Advanced Manufacturing Park, Sheffield.

The company aims to become the UK's leader in this field and eventually to obtain a sizeable market in the world. It proposes to start selling in 2015 after the demonstration models have been commercialised. Already there is considerable interest in the USA as well as in the Netherlands particularly with solar and tidal companies.

Nick Kitchin, CEO at CES said “Energy storage is one of the eight great technologies that the UK is developing a world class capability. As such we are getting tremendous support from a wide range of organisations to help us develop what we believe will be a game-changer business for the renewables industry.”
Nick added: “We instructed Birketts because of their reputation in the energy market. We needed a law firm that was well connected, understood our business and one that we believed could deliver on a number of aspects of the deal. The team at Birketts was responsive and knowledgeable and demonstrated strong co-ordination between departments under the leadership of Andrew Wood. Andrew ‘made the deal happen’ and led the team in a very professional manner.”

Andrew Wood, head of energy, Birketts, commented: “Birketts helped to coordinate investor and legal issues and also introduced CES to our international connections, particularly in the Netherlands, through our energy industry contacts and EEEGR. It’s always particularly pleasing when we’re able to help our clients achieve their growth plans and we look forward to continuing our relationship with CES.”