solar technology company terra based energy raising 44 million
in a series B round.
Co led by Prelude Ventures and Breakthrough energy Ventures,
which is a climate focused VC firm
founded by Bill Gates
Para based offers a digital and robotic automation platform
that aims to reduce the cost and increase the scalability
of solar power plants.
Well,
the platform has been used by more than 500 firms and developers to
deploy large scale solar projects in more than 30 countries around the world.
So joining me now is Matt, Campbell ceo of terra based energy.
Matt, thanks for joining. Congratulations on the round.
Give me an example of how your offering is currently being used.
Yeah.
So in our digital platform,
somebody putting together a solar power plant can automate what was
previously a manual process of taking a piece of land,
doing an engineering design, estimating the cost,
estimating the duration of construction and
really planning for the project process.
So that was previously an analog process and
using our software that can sort of digitalize it
in doing minutes. What used to take days or weeks. Wow.
Okay, so how much, how much money simply matt can you save some companies
and individuals looking to pursue
this sort of project?
Yeah.
Using a combination of the software and robotics,
you can save 5-10% on the cost of a project.
So it's which is which is a significant impact on an already low cost form of energy,
$44 million dollar round. Big name backers.
How are you gonna use that money to expand?
Yeah, it's all about scaling.
So we're going to be growing our software and robotics teams.
We're going to be scaling scaling our
operational capabilities to take on more projects.
Um, you know, the solar market is growing incredibly fast and and certainly with
the hope for passage of the inflation reduction act,
it's the growth is only gonna accelerate.
So we're going to put in place the
infrastructure to support scaling with the industry.
Where are you seeing the most demand for your services?
Uh Well,
the demand for solar power plants is certainly global and there's no part
of the world that doesn't have
significant development of solar projects underway.
But the United States in particular has been the big growth market
in recent years. It's the second largest market in the world outside of china.
And so a lot of our focus is in the United States,
although we're certainly globally active.
So we're showing obviously some images here of large scale solar installation,
solar panel installation projects, matt,
just how much power can this give a particular community?
The installation of these panels.
Yeah, so a typical project size these days might be 500 megawatts,
which is similar in scale to a fossil fuel based power
plant and a solar project of 500 megawatts would be enough.
It would generate enough energy to supply, you know,
two or 300,000 households with electricity for a year.
Incredible. Bill Gates's company, breakthrough energy a backer of your firm?
Of course he's heavily invested in the climate space.
What do you think Bill Gates wants to see out of your Fermat?
Well,
I think he would be looking for a
big impact and were completely impact driven company.
Our,
our goal is to help do our part to accelerate the transition to renewable energy.
And so I think he'd be looking for a big
impact from the company as well as a financial return.
I know you referenced earlier the inflation reduction act and
certainly that's a big one for the biden administration,
hopefully a big one for the climate as well.
That's one of the crucial pillars here of this particular law being signed
into law by the president.
What's the timeline math that you expect some of those dollars to
actually be deployed and that's business for your company to ensue.
Yeah, I think the impact is almost immediate.
So, you know,
developers already have massive pipelines and
projects underway in the United States.
And I think the certainty provided by
the inflation reduction act along with the sort
of government support is only going to accelerate the deployment and and I think,
I think the whole industry is bullish and there have been forecasts that it
could increase the growth in the coming years by a factor of five.
So I think it'll it'll be an immediate stimulus.
I think you see that in the publicly traded solar stocks
which have done very well in the last last year,
and and the legislation is I think it's going to go down as a historical,
a historical event in the progression from fossil fuels to clean energy.
Alright, Matt Campbell, congratulations on the round, Thanks
so much for coming on the show. Matt's Ceo of terra based energy.