Veriten – an energy research, investing, and strategy firm – recently announced the closing of its debut fund NexTen LP, with $85 million in committed capital. And the NexTen fund is highly complementary to Veriten’s mission of identifying and advancing reliable, sustainable, scalable, and economically viable solutions with minimal environmental impact in a constantly evolving and volatile energy landscape.
This fund has made five investments to date, partnering with high-quality businesses that align with Veriten’s views on the direction of energy over the next decade. And the participants in the NexTen fund include select energy companies and financial institutions, current and former energy operations and finance professionals, family offices, and Veriten team members. NexTen’s Advisory Board includes Jason Cansler, CEO of Birch Resources, Bob Gwin, former President and CFO of Anadarko Petroleum, and Marty Phillips, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Encap Investments.
Launched in January 2022, Veriten partners with corporate and financial customers drawn from a full spectrum of energy, power, mining, industrial, and technology companies and provides custom research and strategic advice for management teams and boards. And the NexTen fund is the latest addition to the Veriten platform. It leverages the firm’s broad network and expertise to invest in private companies with the potential to capitalize on long-term energy solutions for consumers globally.
The firm’s leadership team is comprised of its founder, Maynard Holt, co-founder and former CEO of the energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. (TPH), along with Jeff Tillery, former head of TPH Research, Arjun Murti, former head of Goldman Sachs Research, Mike Bradley, former head of TPH Capital Markets, and Todd Scruggs, former Treasurer and Vice President of Corporate Development at WPX Energy. Beyond the commercial efforts of the firm, two of the firm’s more well-known energy education efforts include its weekly “Close of Business Tuesday” (COBT) podcast and “Super-Spiked” energy editorial. COBT has recorded over 215 episodes since March 2020, and Super-Spiked has been published weekly since November 2021.
The NexTen fund’s current investments include:
— Amperon, the leader in AI-powered electricity analytics, provides mission-critical forecasts for businesses to navigate the energy complex and accelerate grid decarbonization.
— Emrgy is a provider of baseload, carbon-free power utilizing small-scale hydro generation technology in water infrastructure assets across the globe.
— Mesa Natural Gas Solutions is a natural gas-powered distributed generation company focused on oil and gas as well as commercial and industrial remote power and power backup applications.
— Orbital Sidekick, a satellite-based asset monitoring provider utilizing hyperspectral technology to help energy, government, and mining customers meet their sustainability and other goals.
— Orennia, the leading data and analytics platform for energy transition investors and developers, with insights across solar, wind, carbon capture, storage, hydrogen, and renewable fuels projects.
Greg Armstrong (co-founder and former CEO of Plains All American and a Veriten Senior Advisor) is joined on Veriten’s Senior Advisory Board by Naomi Boness of Stanford University, Leslie Beyer formerly of the Energy Workforce and Technology Council, Deborah Byers, formerly of Ernst & Young, and former U.S. Congressman Bill Flores.
KEY QUOTES:
“All of us at Veriten have a passion for energy broadly and recognize the complexity and importance of getting the world’s energy systems right in a very critical time. Our work at Veriten is in constant pursuit of understanding where the energy world is headed, with a practical and commercial focus on the next ten years. This work includes identifying the opportunities and challenges associated with societal ambitions, government policies, engineering and physical realities, and geopolitics, as well as the impact of new technologies, capital flows, and, importantly, financial returns.”
“We have intentionally built a community of diverse perspectives that includes great friends, great energy thinkers, experienced energy leaders, and leading energy companies to create a powerful network and collaborative environment that we can call on. Sorting out where energy is headed will require thinking about all the angles. We are really excited about the team, the investors, and the partners we are bringing together to try and crack the code to the next ten years in energy.”
— Veriten Founder & CEO Maynard Holt
“We look for companies that have strong leadership and partners, have developed products or services with existing customers that have broad applicability on trend with where we believe the energy world is going, and where Veriten and its partners can add value to the company.”
— Todd Scruggs, Veriten’s Partner leading the NexTen fund
“At Veriten, in addition to our commitment to providing public thought leadership through COBT, Super-Spiked, and Gener8, a podcast by Veriten’s Nuclear and Power Director Brett Rampal, we are focused on building a powerful commercial business partnering with companies across the energy spectrum and becoming an extension of their executive team to explore tactical questions, offer our perspectives, and compare notes on the energy outlook. As part of that work, we also frequently get pulled into longer-term strategic planning as energy-related and energy-influenced companies are wrestling with the complexity, opportunity, volatility, and hazards of this energy environment. Importantly, we are also investors, and with the addition of the NexTen fund to our platform, we find that nothing sharpens our views of where the energy world may be headed more than evaluating long-term commercial opportunities and investing our own capital.”
— Jeff Tillery, a Veriten Partner and the firm’s COO
“My own decision to un-retire and join Veriten as a full-time partner was an easy one. I have known and liked the team for a very long time, I am passionate about the mission of improving the global energy policy debate, I greatly enjoy the commercial debates around investing our own capital, and I personally thrive on visiting with boards and management teams regarding their go-forward strategic choices. There is no one-size-fits-all strategy in the future energy world.”
— Arjun Murti, Veriten Partner for Energy Macro and Policy
“I love what the team is building at Veriten and think it has the chance to not only be highly successful but to provide intellectually honest information that helps companies, the country, and the world make better energy choices.”
— Greg Armstrong, co-founder and former CEO of Plains All American and a Veriten Senior Advisor
