The smart panel company Span is raising about $176 million from investors, according to an SEC filing, with $163 million in equity sold so far.
The Series C round — first reported by Axios — comes as Span spent 2025 expanding its business with utilities looking for low-cost ways to meet large load growth instead of building more expensive new poles and wires.
Span’s target is utilities at the intersection of load growth and the energy transition, especially in places with aggressive decarbonization timelines like California. The company has been relatively quiet about its shift into the sector, but CEO Arch Rao told Latitude Media in January 2025 that Span is moving from home electrification to the wider world of infrastructure.
Two months later, the company released the “SPAN Edge,” described as an “at-the-meter” grid technology that allows utilities to better manage the distribution grid, beyond traditional metering. The device is aimed at allowing homeowners to add electric vehicles, batteries, heat pumps, and other devices without utilities adding costly new grid upgrades.
The new technology is a result of Span’s partnership with Landis+Gyr, announced in 2024. With the launch of the SPAN Edge, the two expanded their partnership, with Landis+Gyr agreeing to offer the product to its North American utility customers.
With utilities forecasting record load growth from data centers for artificial intelligence, electrification, and onshoring, Span’s pitch is for cost avoidance in meeting that demand — especially now that rising utility bills has become a political flashpoint in the U.S.
“The incumbent model of serving this load growth is building more poles and wires and transformers to meet the load growth,” Rao said last year. “But they’re also being told by their regulators that, ‘hey, the cost of building all of the infrastructure is driving up customers’ energy prices way too high and way too quickly.’”
This shift is reflected in the company’s hiring plans. Span is seeking new staffers such as a field service and utility delivery director, suggesting the company is moving from the utility pilot to the deployment phase; it is also expanding its development team in Bangalore, India.
When Latitude reported on Span’s utility shift a year ago, the company had not yet pinned down which business model would work best for its utility work. Since then, Span participated in PG&E’s virtual power plant pilot, which involved coordinating 400 smart panels within individual homes as well as 1,500 residential batteries managed by Sunrun.
The goal was to leverage the distributed energy resources in neighborhoods where electrical capacity was approaching its limits. PG&E provided week-ahead, hourly signals to Span and Sunrun about its capacity needs so the aggregators could proactively shift loads. The companies haven’t yet publicly disclosed the results of that pilot.
Span is maintaining its business lines focused on both new and existing residential homes, alongside the utility customer. The company’s smart panel, which starts at $2,550, allows homeowners to monitor and control their energy use in real time via a mobile app. But that’s a relatively small, and stagnating market, as rooftop solar installations and EV purchases slow.
At least 15 investors are participating in the Series C, according to Span’s SEC filing. Prior to this round, the company had raised more than $200 million total. Previous investors include Wellington Management, Fifth Wall, and Munich Re Ventures. The last raise was in March 2023.
