NW&P's Operating Traction Rewarded with $15 million Up-Round
On August 21, 2001 utility billing software and services provider, National Water and Power (NW&P) announced the close of a $15 million round of funding. The financing was co-led by EIF Group, the first specialized private equity fund in the US dedicated exclusively to independent power and the electric utility industry, and DQE Enterprises, a subsidiary of utility DQE, Inc. Kline Hawkes and Endeavor Capital Management provided additional funding, among others. The “up-round” for the Santa Fe based company was a significant achievement given the current market conditions and signaled a clear endorsement of the strides management and its investor team have made towards establishing NW&P as the country’s leading provider of utility billing software and services.
Established in 1995, National Water & Power was conceived to take advantage of the multi-billion-dollar opportunity created by the unprecedented changes in the utility industry. Rising utility costs, reductions in wireless equipment costs, a move towards conservation and utility deregulation, have all been major market drivers. Recognizing the enormous potential this opportunity presented, NW&P set about providing a full range of utility services such as billing for electricity, gas, water and waste-water, as well as establishing its customer information systems (CIS) software division, Open-c Solutions, for utilities.
Under the stewardship of the current management team led by Bob Sherman and Pat Langan, NW&P has made tremendous strides. By leveraging its unparalleled IT team, NW&P has begun to automate numerous processes such as meter reading, data reconciliation, reporting and customer service. Since Kline Hawkes’ initial investment the company has almost tripled its billing volume while reducing its staff by nearly 50% and improving bill accuracy and timeliness. “Leveraging technology to automate processes and gain scale is the key to success in this business”, said Klaus Koch an NW&P Board Member and Principal of Kline Hawkes.
Today NW&P is processing over 290,000 bills a month, with a 100% on-time success rate. Within it’s first two years since inception, Open-c has captured three major utility clients: Duquesne’s Aquasource division, Wisconsin Public Service and Washington Gas. As of this writing, both NW&P’s billing services and software businesses are generating positive cash flow and NW&P’s management expects to achieve close to $30m in revenue for calendar 2001 an increase of over 60% from year 2000.