On Tuesday, Mainspring Energy, an energy technology startup in the emerging field of onsite power generation, announced that it has received a Series D venture capital round of $95 million. The investment round was led by Devonshire Investors, the private equity firm affiliated with Fidelity Investments parent company FMR LLC, along with Princeville Capital, 40 North Ventures, and Chevron Technology Ventures. Existing investors Khosla Ventures, Bill Gates, ClearSky, AEP, KCK, and Equinor re-upped for the Series D.
The new funds will be used to accelerate the rollout of Mainspring’s core product, the Mainspring Linear Generator, to a broader range of commercial, industrial, microgrid, and utility customers, by scaling its manufacturing operations, hiring more staff, and consolidating its position in the U.S. market. To date, the company has raised $228 million in venture capital.
“The increasing incidence of extreme weather events and related power outages has underscored the growing demand for resilient, low-carbon, and low-cost power solutions. Mainspring delivers this with the additional advantages of full dispatchability to enable solar and wind resources and the ability to dynamically switch between fuels, including 100 percent renewable fuels,” said Mainspring Founder and CEO Shannon Miller. “This round of funding with additional world-class investors further enables us to grow our linear generator business in order to meet that demand while accelerating the arrival of the zero carbon grid of the future.”
$212 billion by 2030
Figures from market research firm Guidehouse Insights, provided by Mainspring, estimate the global addressable market for distributed generation technology at $86 billion in 2020, growing to $212 billion by 2030.
Within this market, Mainspring’s targeted customer sectors include commercial and industrial buildings, grid infrastructure such as utility, municipality, and power project applications, and a wide range of microgrids such as residential communities, data centers, military bases, and university campuses. The company shipped its first product in mid-2020 and continues its rollout to big-box retail, grocery, shipping, logistics, telecommunications, agriculture, wastewater treatment, and utility customers across the Fortune 500.
Onsite power generation is designed to provide energy where needed, without the use of the electric grid transmission and distribution infrastructure. Mainspring says its generators can produce electricity with utility-scale performance in the size of a parking space, while also adhering to the world’s strictest emissions standards.
“Devonshire sees prospects for disruptive innovations in the fast-growing clean distributed generation industry,” said Shyam Kamadolli, Managing Director at Devonshire Investors, which led the investment round. “Mainspring is well positioned with its combination of a breakthrough generation technology, a tremendous market opportunity, and an outstanding team to execute on delivering to customers.”
The growing mandate for a reliable, affordable, and low-carbon electric grid is driving demand for new power generation technologies that can enable greatly increased use of renewable energy while providing improved resilience against natural disasters, increased flexibility, and lower cost than the electric grid. Mainspring’s breakthrough technology is designed to meet these demands by delivering dispatchable, fuel-flexible power that substantially reduces cost and carbon today, while accelerating the transition to the net-zero carbon grid.
“One of the greatest challenges in the global race towards decarbonization is getting there at sustainable levels of resilience and cost,” added Eric Kosmowski, Managing Partner at Princeville Capital’s Climate Technology Fund. “Mainspring’s approach brings together these benefits in a way that no other technology we’ve seen can accomplish.”
NextEra
In March, Mainspring announced that it has entered a $150 million unit purchase and project finance agreement with NextEra Energy Resources to promote deployment of Mainspring’s product and advance the adoption of renewable fuels such as biogas and hydrogen.
At the same time, Mainspring announced that a(n unnamed) major national supermarket chain, one of several Fortune 500 customers in its pilot program, has signed an agreement to expand deployment of Mainspring Linear Generators to power up to 30 grocery stores. Mainspring began shipping pilot units to multiple Fortune 500 customers in June 2020 and has said that it expects to begin commercial product shipments in mid-2021. Mainspring has shipped products to big-box retail, grocery, and utility customers and is in talks with other Fortune 500 companies in shipping, logistics, telecommunications, and 100 percent biogas wastewater treatment facilities.
“Many commercial and industrial customers as well as utilities want clean, reliable power generation, with the capability to switch to 100 percent renewable fuels like biogas and hydrogen as they become available,” said NextEra Energy Resources President and CEO John Ketchum, upon announcing the agreement. “Mainspring is able to integrate clean onsite generation with both renewables and the grid and we’re pleased to support bringing this innovative product to market.”
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