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Energize Ventures is a leading global alternative investment manager focused on technology companies accelerating innovation in energy and sustainable industry. Energize provides financial, operational and commercial support to digital-first startups spanning renewable energy, critical infrastructure, climate resilience, cybersecurity and mobility. They partner with entrepreneurs to help them scale their companies from early commercialization to growth stage and into the public markets.
Fund Snapshot
- Stage: Series A – Series C (Growth Fund includes Series C and later)
- Check Size: $10-20M
- Geography: Global
- Lead/Follow: Prefer to lead round
- Revenue/Valuation Thresholds: Product is working and ready for commercialization at scale
About the Fund
Why was the fund created?
Energize was born from operators in the energy transition that realized there was a huge opportunity ahead for digital solutions. The energy landscape was changing very rapidly, with a trend to decarbonize. To accelerate that transition, operators needed to implement and use more digital tools within businesses to drive greater efficiencies and to drive better sustainability.
Energize sits at a unique time where new, enabling technologies are being utilized to improve the operations of existing physical assets. In addition, the growth in renewable energy has hit an inflection point and digital technologies can help deploy sustainable infrastructure more efficiently.
What is Energize Ventures’ core belief?
Energize believes that the renewable energy markets are now sizable enough to build big digital businesses within them. There has been a significant increase in the investment in and buildout of infrastructure in the energy and industrial markets over the past decade. For example, the cost to develop a wind farm, a solar farm, or battery array has dropped roughly 5-10% per year. Because of that decline in costs, there’s been a large layer of applications that can now be built on top of the infrastructure layer. That’s necessitated software solutions to come in, and to manage the scale of these new types of assets. And that’s where Energize steps in.
What domains in climate tech does your firm have the greatest expertise in?
The Energize Ventures team is unique because they are a group of individuals with very different yet complementary backgrounds. They have a unique team with specialties in several climate topics, including wind/solar, utilities, oil and gas, agriculture, carbon accounting, construction, manufacturing, and retail energy.
What type of portfolio support does your team provide (strategy guidance, network etc.)?
Energize supports its entrepreneurs throughout commercialization and growth, which includes:
- Hiring
- Strategic planning and decision-making
- Commercial introductions
- Sales and marketing material
- Product expansion
- Capital raising
What is Energize Ventures’ investment process and timeline?
Their process can move as quickly or as slowly as needed. Typically, Energize has a few calls with the CEO and senior management before requesting a data room with more detailed product and financial information.
They look for companies that have a few million in revenue, that are growing quickly, and where they can leverage their network to help startups grow.
What would make your fund consider deviating from your typical criteria?
Consistency is one of Energize’s strengths. Energize sticks closely to their investment thesis because it is proven, and it’s where they can add real value as investors. With their Growth Fund, they are writing larger checks for later-stage companies. Energize currently has investments in four different countries and is always exploring opportunities on a global scale.
About The Author
Daniel currently works at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory as a Product Manager. Outside of his day job, he is a Principal at C3, Tech Scout at For ClimateTech, and Venture Scout at Prithvi. He also works with various climate incubators/accelerators (Cleantech Open, Techstars, and Joules Accelerator) and runs The Impact and Innovate Climate – both are newsletters covering startups in the climate space.