Neara Powers up to Unicorn Status with $90 Million Capital Raise
•February 9, 2026
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Why It Matters
By scaling its physics‑enabled digital twin, Neara can help utilities meet rising demand from AI workloads and renewable integration, addressing grid capacity constraints worldwide. The unicorn status also signals growing investor confidence in Australian deep‑tech solutions for the energy transition.
Key Takeaways
- •Neara raised $90M Series D, valuation $1.1B.
- •Funding led by TCV, includes Square Peg, Partners Group.
- •Digital‑twin AI platform models 15M assets worldwide.
- •Expansion targets more AI engineers and global utility clients.
- •Technology aids grid capacity, resilience, renewable integration.
Pulse Analysis
The global push toward renewable energy and the surge in AI‑driven data centers are straining legacy power grids, creating a market hungry for advanced simulation tools. Neara’s physics‑based digital twin platform combines machine‑learning algorithms with real‑world asset data to generate three‑dimensional models of transmission and distribution networks. By replicating how infrastructure behaves under varying loads, the technology enables operators to pinpoint bottlenecks, forecast outages, and plan upgrades with far greater precision than traditional engineering methods. The platform also integrates weather forecasts and market price signals, allowing operators to evaluate cost‑effective mitigation strategies.
The $90 million Series D round, led by growth‑equity firm TCV, brings Neara’s total funding to about $180 million and crowns the company as Australia’s newest unicorn. TCV’s portfolio, which includes Netflix, Spotify and Revolut, underscores the strategic value investors see in AI‑enhanced infrastructure solutions. Neara’s ability to attract both global and local capital reflects a broader shift toward deep‑tech ventures that address climate resilience and energy‑access challenges. The deal also reinforces Sydney’s emerging reputation as a hub for high‑impact, data‑intensive startups. The funding will support Neara’s rollout of a cloud‑native analytics suite, accelerating client onboarding.
With the fresh capital, Neara plans to expand its engineering team and deepen its footprint across Europe, North America and Asia‑Pacific. Existing contracts with Australian utilities such as Ausgrid and international customers like Southern California Edison demonstrate the platform’s scalability. As utilities grapple with tighter capacity margins and stricter decarbonisation targets, the ability to simulate grid behavior in real time becomes a competitive advantage. Neara’s growth trajectory suggests that AI‑powered digital twins will play a central role in modernising the world’s energy infrastructure. Long‑term, the data generated by these twins could feed autonomous grid‑management algorithms, further reducing human error.
Neara powers up to unicorn status with $90 million capital raise
Neara becomes a unicorn after $90 million Series D funding
Sydney‑based startup Neara has entered the unicorn club, after raising $90 million in Series D funding to become the latest private Australian technology firm to be valued at more than $1 billion.
The new funding is set to accelerate Neara’s global ambitions for its digital‑twin modelling technology, which uses AI and machine‑learning to create 3D digital models of power and infrastructure networks to help better understand how they behave and respond in real‑world conditions and scenarios.
The Series D round was led by global growth‑equity firm TCV, which has previously invested in the likes of Netflix, Spotify and Revolut, as well as local technology firms including Xero, Employment Hero and SiteMinder. A number of Neara’s existing investors also participated in the round, including Square Peg Capital, Skip Capital, Partners Group and EQT.
Neara has now raised around $180 million in external funding to date, and the latest capital raise gives the company a valuation of $1.1 billion, according to a statement provided to SmartCompany.
It follows a $45 million Series C round in late 2024. In September 2023, Neara added $15.25 million to a $20 million Series B round launched in 2022.
“Power grids all over the world are reaching their limits”
Founded in 2016 by Daniel Danilatos, Karamvir Singh and Jack Curtis, Neara has now modelled 15 million assets globally across over 2 million miles of infrastructure. The company is planning to use its new capital to hire more machine‑learning and AI engineers, as well as further expand its international commercial footprint.
In Australia, Neara works with major network utilities, including Essential Energy, Endeavour Energy, Ausgrid, Ausnet, Powercor and SA Power Networks. Its global clients include Southern California Edison and CenterPoint Energy in the United States, as well as ESB Networks in Ireland, Scottish Power in the UK, and Hedno in Greece.
In a statement provided to SmartCompany, Neara said it is now well‑positioned to help address global challenges associated with access to energy as a result of the growth of AI computing and data centres, alongside energy‑transition goals and ageing grid infrastructure.
Neara’s technology can help identify where existing network capacity is being under‑used, speed up new network infrastructure and renewable‑generation connections, and improve the resilience and reliability of the grid, the company said.
“Power grids all over the world are reaching their limits under the combined pressure of AI, electrification, and rapidly rising demand. Across energy, transport and communications, systems built for a different era are now being pushed beyond their design assumptions,” said co‑founder and chief commercial officer Jack Curtis in the statement.
“The world needs faster, more intelligent ways to understand what infrastructure is really capable of and how it behaves in the contexts that matter most,” he added.
“Neara grounds every simulation analysis in real‑world physics, giving asset owners and operators the confidence to stretch capacity, manage risk, and invest where it matters most for both today’s constraints and the demands of the future.”
Muz Ashraf, general partner at TCV, said the raise marked TCV’s third investment in “an Australian‑founded, category‑defining technology”.
“We believe the infrastructure challenges facing the world, from climate resilience to energy access for AI compute, require fundamentally new approaches,” Ashraf said.
“Neara’s highly differentiated, physics‑enabled digital twin platform is a leap forward in how utilities manage their grids. We look forward to supporting Neara in their growth journey as they work to expand their impact globally.”
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