New York Climate Week 2025 is in the rearview mirror and COP30 is approaching swiftly. Now is a good time to take stock of the themes that are top of mind in the conversations that I have had with founders, operators and other investors in the space.

Unsurprisingly, the theme of 2025 is AI, but there鈥檚 just one catch.

AI is about to break the grid

For the first time in two decades, electricity demand is increasing, in large part due to the growth of data centers and computers. That鈥檚 not slowing down: Demand is over the next decade, yet the current energy grid is ill equipped to handle that transition.

The grid is already under strain, and Americans are feeling the pain in a variety of ways: from July 2024 to July 2025 and more than 20% in some states. Outages have increased as well, with the average American in 2023 vs. 2013. We鈥檙e paying more for less.

But the question isn鈥檛 whether we can afford it. It鈥檚 whether our top-down model of centralized utilities can build fast enough to meet demand. The path forward requires both optimizing what we already have and building what we need next.

Modernizing the grid we already have

While that may be true, the first order of business is ensuring that existing energy assets work effectively and reliably. Investment dollars are flowing to modernize the existing grid and mitigate vulnerabilities to ensure that grid physical assets are sufficiently resilient to withstand the strains of increased energy demand and extreme weather. Fortunately, a host of companies are innovating in this critical space to address these challenges.

Among the key players, offers AI-driven climate risk analytics and resilience planning for utilities, while provides visual data management and asset intelligence solutions. has developed a continuous grid-monitoring platform that helps utilities maintain real-time awareness of their infrastructure. Together, these companies represent some of the cutting edge of grid modernization efforts, combining advanced technologies like artificial intelligence, visual analytics and continuous monitoring to strengthen the backbone of our energy system.

Investing in this space is critical to reverse the trend of increased utility outages 鈥� which have already (mostly in part to weather).

Increasing energy capacity is the second to-do, yet we鈥檙e falling behind. The U.S. will add of utility scale capacity in 2025, whereas China added about of capacity in 2024 鈥� nearly 7x that of the U.S.

The solution is at the edge

Fortunately, innovation comes at the edge, and there is strong momentum around scaling energy in a decentralized manner 鈥� the solution is bottom-up capacity growth through distributed energy resources such as rooftop and battery storage systems 鈥� quite different from the legacy systems in place today.

The growth in distributed solar is proof that this is working: Of the 32 GW of solar capacity installed in 2024, 5.4 GW was distributed (defined as residential, commercial and industrial, and community solar). Rates of attaching battery storage systems, which resolve solar鈥檚 intermittency issues, continue to climb as well with over 79% and 61% in California and Texas, respectively, in H1 2025.

These stats are proof that distributed energy is feasible, and now the onus is on scaling. Cost has traditionally been a large barrier to consumer adoption, although that is changing with residential solar costs dropping from 2010 to 2020. However, soft costs (sales and marketing expenditures) and financing costs have masked many of those efficiencies. This has partially been offset through federal tax credits, but per provisions in the OBBB, these will soon be phased out and leave behind considerable adoption hurdles.

Decentralization as a coordination infrastructure

Startups are responding. Consumer energy businesses like 听1 are using crypto-based networks to align incentives between homeowners and the grid. Instead of waiting for utilities or governments to fund new infrastructure, the Daylight Network rewards consumers in exchange for participating in their virtual power plant. The goal is to circumvent the range of expenses 鈥� hardware purchases, soft costs and financing costs 鈥� that have hampered consumer adoption to date and turn energy consumers into active participants in the grid.

In a world where we can鈥檛 wait for governments to catch up and solve the set of issues that are straining the grid (and getting worse every year), startups have to step up with organic bottom-up tools to scale energy generation.

From device coordination to financing to better energy management systems, there are ample opportunities for improvement. As a result, there is also ample opportunity for venture dollars to help these companies, whether it be investing in the businesses that manage the electrical load directly or providing the picks and shovels.

The private sector can drive the transition faster than public systems. AI is not slowing down, and neither is climate volatility. We need to scale the energy infrastructure that serves as its backbone.

is a principal at , a Santa Monica, California-based early-stage venture firm.

Photo by听听on听

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Existing backers , and , also participated in the financing, which brings the company鈥檚 since its early-2017 inception to $130 million. This round comes just nine months (to the day) since SpotOn raised $40 million in co-led by Dragoneer and Franklin Templeton.

San Francisco-based SpotOn is taking on the likes of Square in the payments space. But says it 鈥済oes way beyond鈥� traditional payment processing and point-of-sale (POS) software. Its platform also gives SMBs the ability to run their businesses 鈥渇rom building a brand to taking payments and everything in-between.鈥� It incorporates tools that include things such as custom website development, scheduling software, marketing, appointment scheduling, review management, analytics and digital loyalty.

To put it simply, according to SpotOn President , SpotOn aims to give SMBs the ability to accept payments 鈥渃oupled with meaningful, integrated software to meet their specific needs and operate more efficiently.鈥�

鈥淯nlike other offerings, we build our own product offerings and have straight-forward pricing coupled with face-to-face service,鈥� Horsley added.

Growth

The company says its new funding follows a year in which it saw revenue increase 鈥渂y over 150 percent.鈥� Also, SpotOn doubled its employee count to 850 over the past year. So far in 2020, it鈥檚 added over 5,000 clients with a focus on the food and beverage industry. Horsley said the company expects to add 30,000 clients this year. Currently, SpotOn has 鈥渢ens of thousands of clients,鈥� and is more than doubling year over year, he added.

For 01 Advisors managing partner and co-founder (and former Twitter CEO) , SpotOn is a rare company that can build both 鈥済reat鈥� products and 鈥済reat鈥� sales teams.

The company plans to use its new capital to invest in product development with an emphasis on targeting specific verticals. It鈥檚 especially focused on its restaurant solution, having recently tripled the development team working on improving upon that product.

SpotOn is currently 鈥渁ggressively hiring.鈥� Besides its San Francisco headquarters, the company has 鈥渆xpanding鈥� product, technology and operations teams in Chicago, Detroit and Denver, as well as newly opened offices in Mexico City, Mexico, and Krakow, Poland.

It鈥檚 been a busy week for 01 Advisors. The firm also put money into New York City-based , which provides enterprise-grade IT services to SMBs and has just raised a $14.5 million Series B round.

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