Boulder-based Innosphere Client Company secures growth financing from Innosphere Fund
Fort Collins, Colorado – Innosphere Fund and Houston-based Prisma Energy announced today the closing of a $4.6 million initial institutional financing in Boulder-based startup company, Catalyze. Catalyze is a renewable energy data analytics, development, and asset management platform that partners with mid-to-large commercial and industrial real estate owners to transform their properties into smart energy infrastructure by designing, delivering, financing, and providing asset management services over its life cycle. The smart energy infrastructure includes solar, battery electric storage, electric vehicle charging, and microgrids that improve the profitability, resiliency, and tenant value of commercial properties.
The company plans to use the funding to expand their operations, finance, and sales teams. “The first phase of our business was focused on designing our platform around commercial real estate customer needs. This funding paves the way for Catalyze to deliver more projects and more value to more customers, while also making key hires to help scale the business,” said Joel Serface, Catalyze CEO.
“Catalyze is turning commercial properties into virtual power plants,” said Mike Freeman, Innosphere Fund General Partner. “The company has the analytics and leadership to increase commercial real estate performance through renewable energy. The Catalyze team represents the best of what we like to invest in with extensive expertise in renewable development, software, finance, and entrepreneurship. The Innosphere Fund is pleased to be able to invest in a company that’s identifying and creating a unique solution targeted to a very large, transitioning market.”
“Prisma Energy is investing into the future of smart energy infrastructure and we believe Catalyze is the platform and the team that can best allow owners and developers of commercial properties to focus on their core business while utilizing Catalyze services and expertise to drive down energy costs and create additional revenue,” said Shawn Cumberland, partner and managing director at Prisma Energy. “We look forward to working with Catalyze to create and finance the next generation of distributed energy infrastructure around commercial and industrial properties.”
Catalyze believes that commercial real estate can play a major role in addressing the need for energy storage in distribution systems and on real estate sites. The Catalyze platform helps commercial real estate firms to rapidly identify ideal properties to upgrade or acquire, with the intent of deploying smart energy infrastructure. Their integrated data-driven decision process analyzes energy supply, demand, and network constraints in order to identify optimal locations that, without storage, might otherwise have been unavailable. Catalyze serves as an energy services partner, helping to design and finance energy systems, and maximize revenue over the asset life cycle.
Catalyze’s leadership team includes: Joel Serface, co-founder and CEO, who is recognized as one of the early leaders in the clean technology community, having created or funded more than 20 companies, non-profits, and policy organizations over his career; James Geshwiler, co-Founder and COO, brings twenty-five years of entrepreneurial, venture capital, and energy expertise to renewable energy development; and
Steve Atherton, co-founder and CTO, is a leader in the San Francisco Bay area solar-energy technology community, previously working as the VP of Software Engineering at both Sungevity and Sunrun.
About Catalyze, Inc.:
Catalyze, Inc., is an advanced software and data analytics company that partners with commercial real estate to transform commercial properties into resilient, renewable utilities. We enable commercial property owners to optimize design and location of anchor buildings for microgrids, providing their own resiliency and lower-cost, more reliable electric power. www.catalyze.net.
About the Innosphere Fund:
The Innosphere Fund is a seed-stage venture capital fund which seeks to lead seed-stage investment rounds in companies that are likely to achieve a near-term exit through a corporate acquisition and require smaller amounts of capital to achieve superior growth milestones. Made available to Innosphere client companies that meet certain qualifications, such as being Colorado-based and having a motivated team, the Fund was formed to accelerate the growth and exit of Innosphere’s client companies. www.innosphere.fund.
About Prisma Energy:
Prisma Energy is an Energy Storage Solutions (ESS) company that provides an integrated energy storage and finance solution for applications in utility, industrial and commercial markets in North America – both on a long-term and short-term basis. Prisma Energy Solutions offers innovative flexible products through a short-term lease. Prisma Capital provides investment for development, ownership and operation of electric projects involving battery storage.
