Paul Huelskamp and Alex Meek have been climbing close to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County a couple of years in the past when the peaceable quiet of the woods started to offer option to the clatter of a diesel generator. After they stumbled on it, they noticed it “spewing black smoke” into the in any other case cool, crisp air, Huelskamp recalled.
The generator had been deployed to offer energy throughout one of many many public security shutoffs imposed by California’s utilities to forestall wildfires, and Huelskamp was struck by the inanity of all of it.
“As we walked previous this factor, I used to be like, ‘Alex, have a look at this machine — isn’t it ridiculous that that is what we use once we want electrical energy? Now we have to burn diesel gasoline in an engine and throw that mechanical power by an alternator to generate electrons.’ It’s completely ridiculous,” he mentioned.
The pair talked about how batteries are poised to disrupt numerous industries, so why not moveable energy technology?
“We continued that thought experiment for a few weeks, and we couldn’t actually actually let it go,” Huelskamp mentioned. Collectively, they based Moxion Energy in 2020, and in 2021, they joined Y Combinator as a part of the winter cohort.
In the present day, Moxion landed a $100 million Collection B led by Tamarack International with participation from Collection A lead investor Power Affect Companions. Different buyers embrace Sunbelt Leases, Amazon’s Local weather Pledge Fund, Microsoft’s Local weather Innovation Fund, Enterprise Holdings Ventures, Marubeni Ventures, Suffolk Applied sciences, and Rocketship.vc.
Sunbelt Leases stands out in that record as a result of the corporate owns a large variety of diesel- and gasoline-powered turbines that present electrical energy to development websites, movie areas, live performance festivals, and extra.