Grid2Home Changes Name to Kitu Systems, Raises $2.3M from Investors

SDG&E photo used with permission

San Diego-based Grid2Home, founded in 2009 to develop software for the emerging market in smart meter data communications, has changed its name to Kitu Systems, apparently to position the company for the broader market in the “Internet of Things.” The company explains on its website that “Kitu” means “thing” in Swahili.

Kitu Systems also has raised another $2.3 million from investors, according to a recent regulatory filing, which brings total funding for the company to at least $11 million over the past six years.

No explanation was immediately available for the change. An executive at Kitu’s San Diego headquarters said Monday that CEO Rick Kornfeld was out of town, and Kornfeld did not respond to an e-mail query from Xconomy.

The company is still focused on smart meter and smart grid applications intended to help home-owners monitor and manage their home energy efficiency, and to manage their photovoltaic solar systems, electric vehicle charging systems, and related industrial applications.

But according to the company’s new website, the Internet of Things market has changed significantly over the past six years. So Kitu Systems has expanded its target market accordingly, saying, “Kitu Systems provides robust and scalable software for the Internet of Things. Kitu’s software enables secure and reliable communications from the Thing to the Cloud over a variety of wired and wireless networks.”

The company says its customers include big companies, smart device manufacturers, semiconductor manufacturers, and automotive companies.

As we reported some time ago, the company was co-founded by CTO Don Sturek and CEO Mike Bourton. Sturek apparently left Kitu Systems, and has been working at Silver Springs Network since last summer, according to his LinkedIn profile. Bourton, a longtime telecom executive, continues to serve as Kitu’s vice president of business development.

Granite Ventures managing director Sam Kingsland remains on Kitu Systems board, and former Texas Instruments executive Doug Rasor still serves as chairman.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.