Vibrant Energy poised to take advantage of rental and commercial EPC markets

A City-based venture capital firm has invested £1.35m in EPC-provider Vibrant Energy Surveys.

Close Ventures is betting that Vibrant will be well-placed to take advantage of the requirements for domestic EPCs in the rental and commercial EPC markets. It currently employs 95 Domestic Energy Assessors (DEAs).

Michael Kaplan, Close Ventures assistant director, said: "Vibrant is one of the top two or three [domestic] EPC providers in the country."

Michael Kaplan

He added that he was impressed by the firm’s practice of employing staff directly rather than forming a panel as many EPC companies have done.

He said: "EPCs are a straightforward product and all of the wins are operations and efficiency-based. To get those wins you need your own sales force."

Vibrant produced 24,000 domestic EPCs in its first six months of existence.

Kaplan said: "[Now] before the market roll out while the HIP market is suffering is a great time to be investing in the future and building up the force and the teams capable of serving those two markets as soon as they come on line. Each is as big as the HIPs EPC market."

With coming and future regulations, EPBD II and rising energy prices, this is the way the world is moving now and we want to be a part of that

Michael Kaplan, Close Ventures

He added that the vast majority of rental properties are owned by a small percentage of landlords and that moving quickly and aggressively was of utmost importance.

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Kaplan said he thought that the markets for property management in bulk domestic rental and small commercial were relatively unexplored compared with large-scale commercial

Close has previously invested in leisure firms such as PubCos and hotels.

Kaplan said: "With coming and future regulations, EPBD II and rising energy prices, this is the way the world is moving now and we want to be a part of that.".

Andrew Stead, CEO of Vibrant, added: “Close Ventures has really understood what we needed from a VC partner and has already added value to how we want to take the business forward."

He said the firm was sourcing commercial assessors from its stock of DEAs using various training programmes "in case one falls over".

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