Termina: Transforming energy buying for businesses

Energy buying and management for businesses is extremely tedious, complicated and costly. As Gan Pillai, Head Of Procurement for Uniting Vic.Tas explains, “with a large number of sites to manage, we previously had to contact multiple retailers and spend time on the phone. Each site has a separate invoice, sucking up hours spent tracking energy usage and costs”. 

In the fast-paced world of a multisite business, the priority list is frantic and always changing. When it comes to energy bills, most businesses click ‘pay now’ without a second thought. 

But, what if there was a way for businesses to stay on top of energy administration without actually having to do anything? 

What if businesses had confidence they were always on the best energy rates for their situation, and this happened automatically? 

And what if they could do this while also reducing emissions? 

It sounds too good to be true—but that’s exactly the product Termina is creating for businesses across Australia.

The murky waters of the energy market

In Australia's retail energy market, a familiar story has played out for decades. Three dominant players—Origin, AGL, and Energy Australia—have carved up roughly 70% of the market between them, creating an ecosystem that even sophisticated business customers struggle to navigate effectively.

These businesses face a triple challenge: bewildering pricing complexity designed to confuse rather than clarify, negligible negotiating leverage against massive retailers, and "help" from traditional brokers whose incentives are to recommend the supplier paying them the biggest commission. The result is predictable but costly—Australian businesses consistently overpay, accepting this as an unavoidable cost of doing business. Critically, businesses with up to 5,000 franchised sites (such as a large gym franchise or restaurant chain) face the exact same challenges as 5-site businesses, with their scale offering them fewer efficiencies and negotiation advantages than one might expect. Within the current system, individually operated businesses (even franchises) simply do not have the leverage to negotiate competitively with massive energy providers.

Then we met Termina.

Schooling together: The Termina revolution

After getting a view of energy market pricing dynamics through the eyes of the regulator, Michael Koopman and Rodrigo Garcia-Mulder had a disruptive idea: what if technology could help level the energy playing field and enable individual small businesses to function as a collective in energy markets? Like smaller fish that gain protection and advantage by swimming together in schools, small businesses could potentially transform their market position by aggregating their buying power and sharing intelligence on the best available rates.

In 2020, Michael and Rodrigo joined forces with Tom Dempster while he was researching energy market cost optimisation to create Termina (originally Threadlet) and together they began to develop the concept of an energy management platform that is aligned with the end customer, rather than the big suppliers. The team recognised a fundamental truth that applies across markets—individual players with limited resources can even the stakes against dominant incumbents when they find effective ways to coordinate their actions. This coordination, previously impossible for unrelated businesses, became achievable through Termina's innovative software platform.

The Termina value proposition

Termina's platform services the energy needs of business customers in three ways:

1. Automated Price Optimisation

Traditional energy procurement for multi-site businesses is reactive and infrequent. A business might review its energy provider when contracts expire or when rates increase dramatically—and even then, the complexity of comparing options often leads to inertia.

Termina fundamentally changes this dynamic. Its technology continuously monitors the market for better rates and automatically switches businesses to optimal plans. The business model is refreshingly customer aligned—Termina generates revenue by sharing in the savings that it generates for its customer. 

2. Collective Buying Power

In energy markets, size equals leverage. Large enterprises secure preferential rates not available to smaller entities simply because their consumption volume commands attention from suppliers.

Termina is bundling energy consumption across hundreds of unique businesses into a collective group. A cafe, a gym, and a boutique might have little in common, but when their energy requirements are aggregated, the company can unlock bespoke prices Through the mechanism of group buying discounts and Power Purchase Agreements (PPA), Termina transforms isolated businesses into a collective.

3. All in One Energy Management

Beyond procurement, Termina provides a comprehensive energy management platform that gives businesses visibility into their energy usage and costs. The company solves several operational headaches by aggregating and validating energy bills across the customer’s portfolio. From here, businesses can access energy analytics on a portfolio-wide basis to understand their usage drivers, calculate equipment running cost and reduce costs and emissions from their energy consuming assets. 

The company’s vision is to have a single platform for businesses to manage energy accounts and assets to reduce energy costs and emissions. Depending on their current scale, customers benefit from one or a combination of these core product pillars.

The game is changing

In Australia, Termina now manages over 4,000 energy meters and has impressively doubled since this time last year. It’s no surprise customers are sticking with the no-effort, cost-saving platform, with many continuing to uncover savings well beyond 24 months. Betty's Burgers, Pizza Hut franchisees, and Uniting Vic.Tas are some of the notable businesses benefiting from the platform. We’re excited by the combination of Termina’s obvious value proposition, strong customer retention, broad product vision and exceptional team.

“I was reading through the proposal and thinking 'this is exactly what we need'. Energy is too hard for one person to manage so having Termina manage it for us is a lot easier than negotiating with several companies ourselves.”
Thomas Gunter, Senior Operations Manager, Betty’s Burgers

Termina isn't merely offering a better product in an existing category—it's redefining how businesses engage with their energy needs. By enabling these businesses to aggregate their purchasing power and access sophisticated energy management tools previously available only to large enterprises, Termina is correcting a market imbalance. We’re excited to invest behind a team that is rethinking how businesses engage with the energy market.