Zach Dell

Building @Basepowerco. Formerly @ThriveCapital @Blackstone. Grateful

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

Today, we're launching Base Core, our own battery designed & built in Texas, and announcing our $1B Series D to bring it to homes across the country.

Three years ago, we started Base with a belief that batteries were the unlock to energy abundance. We saw battery storage as the foundation of a modern energy system, and believed we could win the market with vertical integration, technology, and relentless execution (what we now call Base Pace). So we set out to build a network of distributed batteries to deliver affordable, reliable electricity to homeowners and utilities.

While the job is far from finished, the launch of Base Core is the most meaningful step in that plan. We’ve spent the last few years learning hard lessons about building a distributed battery fleet, going from 1 install per day in June of ‘24 to 100 installs per day in June of ‘26. These lessons - how the battery is shipped, installed, used, and monitored - informed the design of Core. Now, Core will be the foundation of the company's next phase of growth.

Base Core is a first-of-its-kind home battery. At ~40 kWh it is 3x the size of most home batteries, providing up to 36 hours of backup for the average home. In the event of multi-day outage, Core is equipped with a (first of its kind) generator port - pull out a small portable generator and charge the battery back up to keep your home running as long as you need. When an outage does happen, the backup is seamless - most members won't even notice the grid went down. It's built to withstand Texas summers, Chicago Winters, and everything in between. And finally, it’s manufactured by our team in Austin, at Base Factory 1, right across the street from our HQ.

This new capital will bring Core to more homes and to accelerate our ambition beyond batteries. The round is co-led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor, and JP Morgan, with participation from new major investors D1, Sands, Coatue, Layer Global, and Energy Impact Partners. All of Base’s major existing investors are re-investing, including Thrive, Altimeter, Lightspeed, a16z, CapitalG, Trust, and more. This brings our valuation to $13B.

As we enter the most important growth period in the history of the electricity industry, our mission has not changed - advance human prosperity by delivering the world's most affordable and reliable electricity. Our strategy has not changed - technology, plus vertical integration, plus relentless execution, leads to a compounding cost advantage. What has changed is the scope of our ambition - this new capital, along with the team and capabilities we've built over the last three years, positions us to build technology across the electric stack, including what it takes to serve surging demand from AI, and to deepen our partnerships with utilities as they work to meet rising demands.

Electricity is the largest and most essential industry in the world, and it does not have a defining technology company. The company that delivers the most affordable, reliable power will be one of the largest and most impactful companies in the world. We intend to build it. If you'd like to join us, reach out.

Onwards.

https://t.co/Qp3F9rPtLa.

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

The Megawatt Machine makes its way to Georgia 🍑

Excited to partner with Central Georgia EMC, our first (but certainly not last) utility partner outside of Texas

Affordable reliability, coming to a neighborhood near you

[Base Power @basepowerco]

We’re excited to announce our partnership with Central Georgia EMC, deploying 50 MW of residential battery storage across the cooperative’s service territory. It’s our first utility partnership outside of Texas.

The program gives @CentralGAEMC a networked fleet it can dispatch 24/7, adding local capacity to support the grid. Members get automatic whole-home backup for $95, with no additional monthly costs.

https://t.co/iJo7nfyDUE

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@max11free is a master of his craft

So fun to hear him get into the weeds with @HarryStebbings

A must listen for sales leaders

[Max Freeman @max11free]

Had a blast with my friend @HarryStebbings. We went deep on a few topics, particularly why we believe talent and culture are the biggest inputs to the GTM equation.

We’re far from having it all figured out, but I couldn’t be more grateful to work alongside such an inspiring team of sellers, leaders, and people across Ramp who care deeply and work incredibly hard every day.

We’re hiring across the board, so please get in touch; and if you're not already on @tryramp -- we'd love to work extremely hard for your business.

https://t.co/WennJBD9Su

[Joshua D. Rhodes @joshdr83]

Hey y'all - check out the latest episode of the @txenergyandpowr podcast with @basepowerco's @cpatdowling where we talked about what Base is up to + a new study with Piq Energy looking at using DERs to alleviate grid constraints for large loads along with who might pay for it.

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@alextaubman Congrats Alex and team, incredible milestone

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@JaredMGreene is N of 1

He has shaped our engineering culture since day 1

And @zabie_e is pretty cool too…don’t miss this episode

[Zabie Elmgren @zabie_e]

Coming soon! @JaredMGreene (Head of Software & founding eng at Base Power) and I yapping about the eng challenges and culture at @basepowerco

In the meantime… Base is hosting a hackathon in Austin TOMORROW!

RSVP here: https://t.co/fvOIswgNIc

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

@skdh Just use the Sun. Anything we do on Earth is pathetically tiny compared to the Sun.

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@KaufmanMic congrats @KaufmanMic and team

Important mission, incredible team, and impressive execution to date

Excited to see what the future holds for Covenant

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@espricewright thank you Erin, grateful to work with you and the rest of the AD team

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@MattBernstein24 @JLopas Thank you Matt. Grateful to parter with you and your team

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@eastdakota Thank you neighbor 🙏

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@ekriessmann Thank you Erik, grateful to partner with you and the rest of the Altimeter team

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@jaminball Thanks Jamin

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@16SamBuck @basepowerco Appreciate you brother

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@JLopas @davidsenra Grateful to get to work with and learn from you and the rest of our incredible team

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@peter_ackerson Thanks Peter

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@ngmxyz 🫡

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

We’re in the middle of the sharpest demand inflection the energy industry has seen in a century.

We built @basepowerco to meet it. Distributed storage lets us add capacity on the grid we already have, in months, in the locations that are actually constrained.

@cpatdowling laid out how this works. We’re bringing tens of MWs online per month today, on the way to hundreds. ERCOT is drafting ADER Phase 4 so those MWs can be dispatched where they’re needed. Resources we can build in a few months can help with real congestion, in real time.

Thanks to our friends at Piq Enerrgy for helping pull this together. We hope it’s useful as other markets try to do the same.

[Base Power @basepowerco]

The first half of the 20th century saw exponential growth in electricity demand in America, and so we built the largest synchronous machine on the planet. This exponential growth is back. Enormous new productive load is being connected to the grid and new generation, transmission, and storage capacity is needed to make, move, store, and ultimately sell energy to people at an affordable price.

ERCOT is leading the way with the ADER program, and the introduction of Phase IV is creating a powerful new tool to help meet these needs.

@cpatdowling , our founding power systems engineer, outlined how what’s happening in Texas can help solve the capacity crunch: https://t.co/HDSP7b783Y

[Zach Dell @ZachBDell]

@akalmans @basepowerco @JLopas @austinenergy Awesome. Appreciate your support and look forward to your feedback on process