Gridtech company David Energy announced that it has secured $23 million in funding to transform the retail energy market and make a clean energy grid a reality. This funding was led by Cathay Innovation, with participation from previous investors Union Square Ventures, Keyframe Capital, Equal Ventures, and BoxGroup, among others. These new funds will support David Energy’s mission to run the grid 24/7/365 on clean energy.
With an aging electrical grid, unpredictable weather volatility, frequent power outages, and rising electricity demand, the need for a cheaper and more resilient grid is accelerating. While clean energy sources like solar and wind are now the most affordable power, their intermittent nature makes them challenging to harness at scale.
David Energy, which is named for empowering customers with distributed energy resources (DERs) to challenge Goliath energy companies, has built the solution: a distributed network of connected devices—think batteries, solar panels, EVs, and smart thermostats—that can respond to the fluctuations of clean energy generation in real-time.
The energy industry, known for being opaque and riddled with scams, can be difficult for most to navigate. David Energy uses its vertically integrated solution to drive transparency—clarifying what consumers need to know, advising on what they don’t know, and providing a platform that handles the complexities in between.
Since its founding in 2019, David Energy has launched residential and commercial electricity solutions. After a Series A round of funding in March 2022, it scaled a commercial offering, an energy spend management platform for multi-unit businesses, from serving only New York to now including over 1,000 locations across New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Texas.
The commercial business has grown 198% year over year, attracting more than 60 new brands, including Equinox, Wing Stop, Subway, Orangetheory, etc. The company also launched its residential offering in Texas, which offers EV and battery owners more ROI and control over their devices. The number of David Energy-connected devices has grown ten times since last year.
This latest funding round enables the company to continue scaling both business lines in their active states and begin expanding across the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. David Energy’s growth strategy is underlined by a larger 10-year vision: decarbonizing the energy sector—the largest contributor to climate change—by becoming the operating system of the 100% clean energy grid.
By acquiring residential and commercial customers, it is building a customer base that naturally aligns with when renewable sources are active and has the controllable capacity to cover the fluctuations. Homes and businesses will benefit from greater ROI, control of their devices, and cheaper and more reliable energy.
KEY QUOTES:
“The core challenge in operating modern grids is managing the volatility brought on by renewables. No grid operator, retailer, or vertically integrated utility across the globe has solved this problem and that’s precisely what we intend to do. Since renewables are essentially free when they’re producing, there is a massive opportunity to supply structurally cheaper power to customers. This investment gives us the capital we need to validate this opportunity and our approach to decarbonizing the grid.”
-James McGinniss, CEO of David Energy
“David Energy is completely redefining what it means to be a retail energy provider with a modern, tech-forward and vertically integrated approach designed for the clean energy era. They’ve demonstrated strong, repeatable growth and stickiness, particularly with the underserved segment of small commercial businesses, led by a team that combines deep energy market expertise and technical product leadership which are critical elements for success. David Energy is primed to scale and we’re thrilled to support James and the team on the journey ahead.”
-Simon Wu, Partner with Cathay Innovation
