Bayard Makes Strategic Investment In WACS
WACS poised to accelerate growth
Minneapolis — WACS, a leading provider of meter data management (MDM) software solutions and decision management technologies for electric, natural gas and water utilities with more than 11 million endpoints under contract, announced recently that Bayard Group has taken a minority stake in the company. Bayard Group is a leading global investor in energy measurement and efficiency technologies.
Kristine Beck and Dave Hubbard, co-founders of WACS, will continue to lead the company; they expect to use a portion of the funds for working capital to enable the company to increase sales and marketing activity, deepen research and development capacity and hire key executive and operational personnel. In addition, WACS joins the Bayard family of companies focused on providing a wide array of energy management technologies globally. The investment accelerates WACS' growth prospects among organizations around the world implementing advanced meter infrastructure (AMI), a growing market projected to increase by more than 60 percent by 2011.
"We're pleased to become a part of Bayard's vision," said Dave Hubbard, chief technology officer of WACS. "Our team has built the most advanced MDM solution deployed today. We're committed to utilize this funding to enhance our leadership position and continue to deliver new and innovative analytical solutions for the industry."
Recognized as one of the first companies to identify the market need for MDM solutions, WACS has offered its best-of-breed solution since 2001. In fact, WACS' MDM solution was tested and certified in 2005 by one of the leading systems integrators to scale beyond 10 million meters.
"WACS has shown itself to be the leading MDM provider in the market today," said Cameron O'Reilly, founder and managing director of Bayard Group. "We are pleased to have WACS as part of the family and we're excited about what WACS can achieve with our other member companies."
This deal positions WACS to further leverage integration with other Bayard Group companies, expanding on partnerships like those already achieved with Cellnet+Hunt at Puget Sound Energy (PSE), Washington state's oldest and largest energy utility, to create a seamless, end-to-end AMI and MDM solution.
"Bayard's investment underscores our longstanding confidence in the WACS MDM solution," said Darren Brady, PSE's chief information officer and senior vice president of Customer Service & Information Technology. "PSE is looking forward to seeing exciting new offerings and benefits that are sure to come from this new relationship between WACS and Cellnet+Hunt."
As with all Bayard companies, WACS will continue its commitment to independently partner and support technology providers based on client needs and preferences.
About WACS
WACS is a leading provider of meter data management (MDM) software solutions and decision management technologies for electric, natural gas and water utilities. The WACS solution offers a flexible, configurable and highly scalable architecture, enabling it to receive data from any AMI system and/or manual source. Its world-class engines and analytics provide utilities with support for critical operational and business processes. Founded in 2000, the company is headquartered in Bloomington, Minnesota.
About Bayard Group
Since its establishment in 2002, Bayard has committed over US $1.2 billion to the energy measurement and efficiency sector. With operations in 30 countries, the Bayard portfolio includes Landis+Gyr, the world's largest electricity metering company and Cellnet+Hunt, a leading provider of utility advanced metering and communications solutions. Other Bayard companies include Ampy Email Metering and Enermet.
SOURCE: WACS