Building America's Next-Generation Power Company
Today, we’re announcing our $200 million Series B funding round, led by Addition, a16z, Lightspeed, and Valor, with support from existing investors Thrive, Altimeter, Trust Ventures, and Terrain. Lee Fixel of Addition will join Antonio Gracias of Valor on our board.
Our mission at Base is to fix the power grid and enable affordable & reliable electricity for all. To do that, we are building America’s Next-Generation Power Company; the first engineering-led, technology-focused, R&D-driven electricity company.
Our mandate is to build a distributed energy network that serves homeowners while stabilizing the grid. Since our launch last year, our team - now about 100 engineers and operators - has wrestled with this problem daily.
This post details our progress so far and how we’ll use this capital to advance our mission further. If this kind of challenge sounds like fun to you, we want to hear from you.
Our mission at Base is to fix the power grid and enable affordable & reliable electricity for all. To do that, we are building America’s Next-Generation Power Company; the first engineering-led, technology-focused, R&D-driven electricity company.
Our mandate is to build a distributed energy network that serves homeowners while stabilizing the grid. Since our launch last year, our team - now about 100 engineers and operators - has wrestled with this problem daily.
This post details our progress so far and how we’ll use this capital to advance our mission further. If this kind of challenge sounds like fun to you, we want to hear from you.
Why fixing the grid matters now, more than ever
The urgency of solving grid instability and rising energy costs has never been higher. The grid’s stretched thin. New demand from the electrification of transportation and AI compute is coming online fast. While low-cost renewables are a vital part of the solution, their intermittency creates problems that are amplified by aging infrastructure.
Distributed storage is the unlock - a responsive, real-time solution that balances supply and demand and provides the capacity we need to scale our existing infrastructure to meet the incredible demand for electricity that is coming. Distributed energy is the key to a future of American energy abundance.
Distributed storage is the unlock - a responsive, real-time solution that balances supply and demand and provides the capacity we need to scale our existing infrastructure to meet the incredible demand for electricity that is coming. Distributed energy is the key to a future of American energy abundance.
Progress
When we started Base, we knew we were in for a steep climb. Energy storage is inherently tricky. Layer in distributed deployment across thousands of homes, and the complexity multiplies.
We started with a single installation, then one a week, then suddenly, five a day. Last month, we deployed more than 10MWh of storage (16 installs/day on average). We’ll continue to ramp install rate in the coming months and by the end of the year we’ll be the fastest (MWh/week) and most capital efficient ($/MWh) battery developer in the country.
Hardware is hard. Each new iteration of our system pushes deeper into the complex engineering challenges that define modern energy storage - thermal management, power conversion efficiency, manufacturability, and reliability at scale. We're using real-world performance data to inform rapid development cycles, driving improvements across both hardware and software. To this end, we're building our first factory in Texas to ensure greater resilience, cost efficiency, and control as we scale.
In less than a year since we launched the product in 3 towns in north Austin (Hutto, Round Rock, and Pflugerville), we’ve expanded to another ~70 municipalities across Texas and built a loyal base of over 1,500 members. Word of mouth referrals have fueled our growth (30%+ month over month since launch), with an industry leading Net Promoter Score of ~80 driving organic growth.
Partnerships have proven to be another strong growth vector. With Lennar (one of the country's largest home builders), we’ve integrated systems into hundreds of homes, learning how to streamline installation in new builds. Bandera Electric, our first utility partner, has shown us how valuable our hardware, software, and deployment operations can be for vertically integrated utilities. We are excited to continue building tools to help these utilities thrive in an era of growing electricity demand.
We started with a single installation, then one a week, then suddenly, five a day. Last month, we deployed more than 10MWh of storage (16 installs/day on average). We’ll continue to ramp install rate in the coming months and by the end of the year we’ll be the fastest (MWh/week) and most capital efficient ($/MWh) battery developer in the country.
Hardware is hard. Each new iteration of our system pushes deeper into the complex engineering challenges that define modern energy storage - thermal management, power conversion efficiency, manufacturability, and reliability at scale. We're using real-world performance data to inform rapid development cycles, driving improvements across both hardware and software. To this end, we're building our first factory in Texas to ensure greater resilience, cost efficiency, and control as we scale.
In less than a year since we launched the product in 3 towns in north Austin (Hutto, Round Rock, and Pflugerville), we’ve expanded to another ~70 municipalities across Texas and built a loyal base of over 1,500 members. Word of mouth referrals have fueled our growth (30%+ month over month since launch), with an industry leading Net Promoter Score of ~80 driving organic growth.
Partnerships have proven to be another strong growth vector. With Lennar (one of the country's largest home builders), we’ve integrated systems into hundreds of homes, learning how to streamline installation in new builds. Bandera Electric, our first utility partner, has shown us how valuable our hardware, software, and deployment operations can be for vertically integrated utilities. We are excited to continue building tools to help these utilities thrive in an era of growing electricity demand.
Where this capital takes us
This $200 million lets us dig deeper into the problems ahead. Here’s the plan:
Pushing R&D forward
We’re investing heavily in new products that enhance our distributed storage platform - think smarter hardware, deeper grid integration, and new solutions that scale our impact.
Scaling production
We’re breaking ground on our first Base factory in Texas. This will help us meet growing demand while controlling our destiny by ensuring resilience and cost efficiency as we scale.
Expanding utility partnerships
Our work with Bandera Electric is the blueprint. We’re in talks with additional Texas utilities and pursuing opportunities beyond the Lone Star State. By offering turnkey distributed storage solutions, we help municipal utilities (Munis), cooperatives (Co-ops), and investor-owned utilities (IOUs) lower costs, boost reliability, and integrate renewables - all while growing our footprint.
Building the team
We’re hiring aggressively - engineers and operators who want to tackle some of the toughest challenges in energy. If you’re excited by designing purpose-built hardware, writing software that commands a fleet of batteries in real-time, or scaling a vertically integrated deployment machine, we want to meet you.
We’re investing heavily in new products that enhance our distributed storage platform - think smarter hardware, deeper grid integration, and new solutions that scale our impact.
Scaling production
We’re breaking ground on our first Base factory in Texas. This will help us meet growing demand while controlling our destiny by ensuring resilience and cost efficiency as we scale.
Expanding utility partnerships
Our work with Bandera Electric is the blueprint. We’re in talks with additional Texas utilities and pursuing opportunities beyond the Lone Star State. By offering turnkey distributed storage solutions, we help municipal utilities (Munis), cooperatives (Co-ops), and investor-owned utilities (IOUs) lower costs, boost reliability, and integrate renewables - all while growing our footprint.
Building the team
We’re hiring aggressively - engineers and operators who want to tackle some of the toughest challenges in energy. If you’re excited by designing purpose-built hardware, writing software that commands a fleet of batteries in real-time, or scaling a vertically integrated deployment machine, we want to meet you.
Join us
We’re building America’s Next-Generation Power Company - and we need your help.
If you’re passionate about tackling one of the most critical challenges of our time, now is the time to join us. Together, we can usher in a new era of American energy abundance by developing the hardware, software, and deployment operations that make it possible.
Our ambitions are big. Our team is small. That means there’s nowhere else one talented person can have more impact. If we get this right, the upside is enormous.
If the next few years are anything like the first few, it’s going to be extremely hard - and incredibly fun.
Onwards.
If you’re passionate about tackling one of the most critical challenges of our time, now is the time to join us. Together, we can usher in a new era of American energy abundance by developing the hardware, software, and deployment operations that make it possible.
Our ambitions are big. Our team is small. That means there’s nowhere else one talented person can have more impact. If we get this right, the upside is enormous.
If the next few years are anything like the first few, it’s going to be extremely hard - and incredibly fun.
Onwards.
Zach Dell
Co-founder and CEO, Base Power Company
Co-founder and CEO, Base Power Company
