Energize Ventures, an early and growth-stage venture fund, has announced the closing of its second fund with total capital commitments of $330 million. Fund II will be used to help scale and commercialize software across renewable energy, mobility, cybersecurity, battery storage, critical infrastructure and climate resiliency.
The fund, which is worth exactly double what Energize raised for its first fund, is backed by anchor investors such as Invenergy, CDPQ, SE Ventures, GE Renewable Energy and Hannon Armstrong. Credit Suisse, Xcel Energy, American Electric Power and Equinor Ventures also participated.
“Since we first launched Energize five years ago, we have seen the energy and industrial sectors undergo a massive digital transformation,” said John Tough, managing partner of Energize Ventures, in a statement. “The transition towards a more renewable and sustainable future is outpacing all expectations, and market participants are digitizing operations to address this new, emerging scale.”
To date, Energize has deployed capital from Fund II into three investments, including Munich-based predictive battery analytics software TWAICE, Columbus, Ohio-based IoT device company Finite State and New York-based critical infrastructure safety AI company Urbint, according to the firm.
Fund II is targeting 15 or more early-stage digital-first startups that are raising Series A, B or C rounds in the energy and sustainable industry sectors. Typically, Energize Ventures invests around $10 million to $20 million and prefers to lead the round.
The firm’s first round invested in 14 software-based companies, including the now-public EV charging solution Volta, cloud manufacturing startup Fast Radius and solar software company Aurora Solar.
“Energize exclusively invests in digital solutions,” according to the company. “That means no hardware, no moonshots that require untold amounts of capex to get off the ground — just technologies at the software layer at commercialization. Part of that comes from the firm’s investment strategy; the team leans on its LPs (including well-known corporates such as GE and Schneider) to identify the challenges facing the sectors today, and then finds solutions that overcome those barriers to decarbonization.”
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