Big news today at Energize as we are expanding our Endurance investment team to meet the future of energy and industrial technology! Specifically we are announcing the hire of Alan Glass as a Partner and Co-Head of Energize Endurance, Energize’s private equity strategy focused on growth buyouts of profitable climate companies.  The Wall Street Journal covered our hire of Alan, here.

Since our founding, Energize has focused on being the specialist capital partner for asset-light companies shaping the next chapter of the economy—from the energy transition to industrial digitization to infrastructure resilience. That mission hasn’t changed, but the opportunity in front of us—and the team required to seize it—has grown dramatically. 

Our Ventures platform, led by co-heads Tyler Lancaster and Juan Muldoon, was built to meet the needs of early-stage companies bringing new technologies to market. These founders needed partners who could help them scale products, sharpen operations, and develop their commercial footholds. To serve them, we assembled a team with deep roots across both finance and energy—people who could see the market opportunity and structure the capital to meet it. 

As the sector advanced, companies began achieving levels of scale rarely seen before in digital climate solutions. They had outgrown the bounds of traditional venture support, but there wasn’t yet a capital partner designed for their next chapter. To meet that need, we brought on Kevin Stevens, an energy industry veteran, to launch our growth platform—equipping later-stage companies with the capital and expertise to bridge the gap between venture and maturity. 

With the Energize platform’s existing strengths and “right to win” as a domain expert we felt that it was best to complement our strengths with an experienced investment expert from a strong traditional private equity platform. Enter Alan Glass. Alan joins us from Vista Equity, where he worked as a senior investor on their Flagship fund. We met Alan over the course of several months and immediately felt the pull of both his cultural alignment as well as his own desire to be part of a big and growing opportunity. Like me and the other Partners ar Energize, Alan sees the ability for a big firm to be built in climate up and down the capital stack; and he wants to be part of that effort. “Why not us” is a common Energize phrase and one I’ve already heard Alan use about the opportunity ahead- and with him, Kevin, the foundation of Energize and our ongoing commitment to hire great talent I do expect we can develop a go-to firm for later stage climate opportunities.

Let’s GO!

 

Today Energize as back in the Wall Street Journal! This time not for an acquisition but rather the start of a journey with a company: a new investment in the Series B for Greenlite Technologies.

Greenlite is an AI-based platform that helps accelerate the permitting process for commercial projects. The labor pool at the federal, state, and local agencies are all stressed on people and time. New LLM based technologies that can interpret local rules and enable these groups to accelerate the plan-permit-approval process are providing incredible value and scaling quickly. Excitingly, both sides of the customer base wins: the commercial entities like restaurants or small infrastructure projects – but also the states who don’t have to scale their personnel to serve the increasingly decentralized buildouts.

At Energize we generally believe that the next wave of the infrastructure  movement is decentralized and digitized. Decentralized asset planning and management requires new tools versus historical process and we believe Greenlite will play a meaningful role in that efficiency.

The company was founded by Ben Allen and James Gallagher  and we are excited to partner with them for the next stages of the company’s growth. We are also excited to collaborate with Insight Partners in this round – our first time working with them directly.

 

I still receive, and read, the daily paper for the Wall Street Journal. While the news can move quickly, the paper version tells you what is more noteworthy on any given day because an editor is making a decision to determine headlines and understand how other stories may relate. The “front page” left runner with the top summaries is an important stream for the big news of the day.

There is also the added benefit of the print/tangible version that annotates notable events. As I wrote two days ago, Nozomi Networks was acquired by Mitsubishi Electric for ~$1BN.

Yesterday’s WSJ had the Nozomi acquisition on the front page highlights, and a big article in the paper itself. A “front page highlight” is a first for me and Energize. The article captures the powerful moment for the ICS industry and shows how industrial controls, visibility and cybersecurity is now a critical technology for the energy and industrial landscape. And now that the article is in a printed version, I can get the article framed- good to enjoy and reward the great outcomes!

M&A marks a milestone, signaling the close of one chapter and the transfer of success from one shareholder base to another with new expectations. It is both an ending and a beginning, reshaping what growth and value mean for the company. Some deals unfold quietly, absorbed without much notice, while others reverberate across industries, forcing competitors and markets to respond. The best deals send thunderous shock waves across industry and create a new standard of excellence for the market.

For many reasons for the industry, for Energize Capital, and for me personally – the Nozomi Networks acquisition announced today by Mitsubishi Electric Co. is a lightning bolt of excitement. This transaction will send positive reverberations for years to come as an example of extreme success at the intersection of software and climate/industrials. While the personal excitement is more a subjective milestone, here are some objective details:

• this is the largest acquisition of an OT/IoT company in history
• this is the largest cybersecurity acquisition by an industrial OEM company
• this is the largest disclosed acquisition by Mitsubishi Electric

Big numbers today… but this team will continue to aim higher within the Mitsubishi Electric framework.

How did we get here?

Juan Muldoon and I first evaluated the OT cybersecurity space back in 2017 and uncovered a rare gem of a team based out of Mendrisio Switzerland that had a product and customer obsession. We led a $15M investment, joined by our friends at Notable Capital, Lux Capital, and Planven. Nozomi Networks and the team are especially personal to me because this was my first investment/ portfolio company at Energize; I’ve been on the board since the investment and have witnessed the highs and lows of company building. Today marks the outcome of hard work and that journey. The best part of the story is the people: the cofounders are some of the kindest in the world. At Energize we say “family first” is our most important ethos. Andrea Carcano and Moreno Carrullo are the cofounders of Nozomi Networks and their quality as people has set a standard that makes it hard for other cofounders to match. The cofounders are 2 parts of a 3-part “three amigos” narrative with the 3rd member being CEO and very early employee, Edgard Capdevielle. Edgard describes himself as teflon- but that is only part of the story. Yes, he was a ruthlessly efficient operator, but he also is a visionary. He saw the opportunity to define a category and use his experience and management skills to create a world-class organization. And, he did just that.

We invested in Nozomi at ~10 employees and around $1M in revenue. Next year the revenue figure will cruise through $100M and the company will be a/the top OT cybersecurity company on the planet.  The industrial technology landscape is not an easy customer base to win over- these are engineers testing the software product at every step… marketing is not enough; product leadership wins. Nozomi’s commercial scale in a tough market is proof that leadership and strong product can crack even the toughest market. And, at the other side of that battle is an amazing outcome.

When Energize joined the investment I quickly gained two friends and mentors in Glenn Solomon from Notable Capital, and Bilal Zuberi from Lux Capital. Both men are legends of the technology landscape and my learnings from them were immeasurable. It’s been a real treat being involved with them here.

I am also posting two important photos: 1 from when I first visited Mendrisio in 2017 and spoke with the (small) Nozomi team- back in 2017. And a second photo from a month ago where the cofounders and I assembled for an identical layout. We look great, just a bit older. The only sad part of this story is that the Energize-Nozomi chapter now ends. But I hope and expect the relationships to find new avenues over the years to come.

 

A few weeks ago, in Mendrisio, we recreated my photo with the first 10 Nozomi employees that I took in 2017. We aged a bit, but it was a great journey. A link to the WSJ article on the transaction is here.

 

 

 

Energize has become a central firm at the intersection of climate (energy, industrials, etc.) and capital light business models (software, services). We now host an annual event in Chicago to bring together stakeholders in each of these verticals and it has grown to a massive success with 250+ attendees across a full day.

2025’s event is this September 17th in Chicago. I will be kicking it off with a keynote and then an interview with Michael Polsky in a fireside chat.   Then we have a mix of panels and free time to enable the group to connect!.

 

The event is invite-only, but you can apply here. Link

I haven’t posted here in a while but we have a bunch going on in Q3/Q4 so I anticipate more notes to share with you all over the coming months. The first one to share is that the Energize Endurance strategy (our growth buyout strategy) is hiring. The strategy is focused on profitable climate companies and we are  looking for at least one Senior Associate to join us. This role will be based in Chicago with a target start date of Q4 2025.

Here are some notes from the team
The opportunity: As part of the Endurance team, you’ll source and evaluate investments, create theses, conduct diligence, and work closely with management teams to drive growth and value creation. This is a chance to work alongside a small, entrepreneurial team investing in the companies shaping the energy transition.

🔗 Apply here: https://lnkd.in/dQM5fzR8

About Endurance: At Energize, we’ve always believed climate solutions deserve specialist investors. Our Endurance strategy is designed to provide that specialist support to climate companies that are achieving their next phase of scale—profitable or nearing profitability, capital-light, and critical to a modernized economy. We back these businesses with flexible capital, operational support, and our Energize EDGE platform to help unlock their next phase of growth.

Learn more about our Endurance strategy: https://lnkd.in/dXg72XgA

In 2020 the entire Energize team fit comfortably in a (maybe) 2,000 square foot space on the 11th floor of One South Wacker Drive. At Energize we have a phrase “we choose to grow, together” and this represents our desire to growth with the climate market opportunity. Alongside this phrase you will usually hear me say “why not us?” At that time we saw the climate market growing and knew that to serve the space with the intention it deserves, we would need to create and build our portfolio services team (EDGE), expand our strategies (adding Growth), and continue to build out the operations team.

Well, almost exactly 3 years after we moved into our 5,000 square foot space on the 11th floor of the same building we just signed an agreement to move to the 23rd floor and take over nearly 11,000 square feet. The expansion was picked up by Chicago Business Journal and through a CBRE press release, found here.

I was surprised at the press’ interest in the expansion, and I thought the questions from the reporters and our network highlighted why this was more than a normal expansion in their eyes.

1- Why grow a climate and industrial technology investment firm in Chicago? I suspect the Energize team will get this into perpetuity- but the market seems to be incredulous to the concept. Chicago is an amazing place to grow a firm, and the city offers a huge talent pool.

2- Commercial real estate is in flux, as is WFH culture. Why commit to an office? The investing business is a people and decisions business. The ability to train shoulder-to-shoulder and learn from the varying experiences of our diverse team is a major competitive advantage you just can’t get over a ZOOM or Teams meeting. We are better together and we’ve committed to 4 days a week in the office. We are also hosting far more people in our office and believe there is power in being a convener.

We have a 2030 plan and a 10-year plan at Energize. We believe the climate & industrial technology market is big enough to deserve and rewards specialists and we will continue to grow to serve this market. I think we will be in the same office by 2030, though!

In September Energize held our 2-day marathon of events: the Energize NEXT Climate Software conference, and our Annual General Meeting. Before the day started at our conference we were able to sneak away for a quick team photo. That photo of the current team is below – and we have another 3 starting before year-end.

Finance firms have many stakeholders: teammates, entrepreneurs/portfolio executives, Limited Partners, co-investors and industry stakeholders. I’ve studied successful and failed finance firms. That research revealed to me the key differentiations between the high performing and enduring firms from those firms that fail. The simple answer is that the performant and enduring firms never stop placing the internal team as the priority. A performing and respectful team naturally identifies and supports investments and entrepreneurs. And ultimately those portfolio companies (with the support of the investors) create shareholder value that accrues to the Limited Partners/investors.

At Energize we have a truly amazing team, purpose built for the market opportunity we are serving in the climate market. We have a driven, respectful investment team that has repeatedly identified market leaders. We have an EDGE team strengthening our investment process and creating and preserving value for our portfolio. We have an operations team that knows our trajectory and is both precise in today’s operations while planning for the future.

Given the pace of change it is hard to stop and acknowledge the changes we’ve faced and overcome as a firm. I’m very excited for our current state, and more excited for what is coming next.

One of the first investments Energize made as a firm was in a European leader, Nozomi Networks. Since then we have deployed nearly 20% of our invested capital into the European ecosystem. While others shy from the market we believe there is tremendous climate and industrial technology innovation emerging. Our persistence – and willingness to take the redeye- has helped us become a staple in the Eurpean market and resulted in such investments as TWAICE (Germany), Monta (Denmark), PVcase (Lithuania), Beekeeper, (Switzerland), and Nozomi Networks(Switzerland). We also have an unannounced deal on the continent.

Today I am excited to announce another addition to the Energize portfolio – and to our leading European investment footprint: Energize is leading a $13M Series B investment in Elum Energy, a cutting-edge energy management solution helping to control, monitor, and analyze renewable energy systems around the globe.

We’ve been investing behind the solar theme for close to a decade and believe the space is still in the early innings. We have leadership positions in solar design and sales (PVcase and Aurora Solar) and are making our first investment into the control systems and monitoring side of the solar business model. Solar is the largest for of new energy generation on our planet and the entire technology stack is being developed today to help grow from GigaWatts to TerraWatts.

I believe Energize is the best partner for any capital light business enabling the energy and climate transition. We only make 4-6 new investments per year so it takes a rare founding team and operating plan to get our attention. I met the Elum team in Paris earlier this year and the product and customer obsession quickly made it clear that we had aligned technology visions. The Energize team is very motivated to grow with the Elum team over the coming years and build the best control system for the largest new energy infrastructure asset class. Eileen Waris and Ana Hugener are representing Energize on this investment; and press and the formal “Why We Invested” for Energize can be found here.