PRESS RELEASE. In the middle of October, Ahto Pärl, CFO with long-term experience, joined Fusebox. In addition to the financial sphere, he will also lead the development of CO2 offset solutions. Previously, Pärl, as a co-founder of Fusebox, has supported the team in the role of an advisor.
“Ahto’s experience in international companies is of great help for the future success of Fusebox,” said Tarvo Õng, founder and CEO of Fusebox. “Fusebox is a fast-growing international company facing new markets and challenges,” he added. “As CFO, Ahto will provide the team and investors of Fusebox with the confidence that our company will make correct and considered financial decisions and will be able to attract funding from a variety of sources.”
Ahto Pärl said that he has supported Fusebox from the beginning for several reasons. “I am interested in the sustainability, and I have always been challenged by novel technologies and their development and implementation,” said Pärl. “Fusebox has tripled its team in a short space of time this year,” he added. “Since we were also able to bring on board the internationally renowned venture capital fund Fly VC, there was the capacity and the need to join in a day-to-day role,” Pärl explained the reasons behind his full commitment to the start-up.
Previously, Ahto Pärl has worked as a CFO in Estonia and the United States in the financial, logistics, aviation and manufacturing sectors, including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Omniva, Nordica and Eurora. He has also led start-ups Finbite and Wallester. He has also been engaged in the boards of the Ekspress Grupp, Baltic Workboats and Printall. Ahto Pärl holds an MBA in Business Administration from New York University and a BA in Economics from the University of Tartu.
In total, Fusebox has raised €2.2 million. In July, the company raised €1.3 million to grow its team and expand into new markets. The leading investor of the financing round was the German venture capital company Fly Ventures, and well-known Estonian angel investors joined the investment.
The main product of the start-up is a virtual power plant that provides grid operators with grid balancing services to replace fossil fuel generators on the short-term balancing market. Instead of paying money to the power plant, it is paid to large consumers, who reduce or increase their consumption for a short period as needed. The above solution will also help save CO2 emissions by replacing electricity generators based on fossil fuels.
The customers of Fusebox are medium and large companies in the logistics, manufacturing, industrial, real estate management, and retail sectors. Fusebox helps businesses contribute to a greener environment, offers savings on energy costs, and enables buildings to generate revenue for the building owners while not affecting their core business.
Fusebox is the first company in the Baltic States that offers an energy system balancing and trading platform. Active trading takes place on the Estonian and Lithuanian markets. In addition, the company has representatives in Latvia, Finland, Poland, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Australia and Brazil, and the company plans to offer virtual power plant services in Finland, Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands.
