fresh funding
Energy startup Base Power raises $1 billion series C round
Austin-based startup Base Power, which offers battery-supported energy in the Houston area and other regions, has raised $1 billion in series C funding—making it one of the largest venture capital deals this year in the U.S.
VC firm Addition led the $1 billion round. All of Base Power’s existing major investors also participated, including Trust Ventures, Valor Equity Partners, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Altimeter, StepStone Group, 137 Ventures, Terrain, Waybury Capital, and entrepreneur Elad Gil. New investors include Ribbit Capital, Google-backed CapitalG, Spark Capital, Bond, Lowercarbon Capital, Avenir Growth Capital, Glade Brook Capital Partners, Positive Sum and 1789 Capital Management.
Coupled with the new $1 billion round, Base Power has hauled in more than $1.27 billion in funding since it was founded in 2023.
Base Power supplies power to homeowners and the electric grid through a distributed storage network.
“The chance to reinvent our power system comes once in a generation,” Zach Dell, co-founder and CEO of Base Power, said in a news release. “The challenge ahead requires the best engineers and operators to solve it, and we’re scaling the team to make our abundant energy future a reality.”
Zach Dell is the son of Austin billionaire and Houston native Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Round Rock-based Dell Technologies.
In less than two years, Base Power has developed more than 100 megawatt-hours of battery-enabled storage capacity. One megawatt-hour represents one hour of energy use at a rate of one million watts.
Base Power recently expanded its service to the city of Houston. It already was delivering energy to several other communities in the Houston area. To serve the Houston region, the startup has opened an office in Katy.
The startup also serves the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin markets. At some point, Base Power plans to launch a nationwide expansion.
To meet current and future demand, Base Power is building its first energy storage and power electronics factory at the former downtown Austin site of the Austin American-Statesman’s printing presses.
“We’re building domestic manufacturing capacity for fixing the grid,” Justin Lopas, co-founder and chief operating officer of Base Power, added in the release. “The only way to add capacity to the grid is [by] physically deploying hardware, and we need to make that here in the U.S. ... This factory in Austin is our first, and we’re already planning for our second.”