Tarun Batchu is the co-founder and CEO of Vela Energy, a startup building AI execution agents for large-load energy projects - software that reads a project's real records and drafts the procurement, permitting, and engineering work needed to move interconnection queues faster, always stopping for a human to approve. He started chasing energy problems at 12 with a carbon-capture project that reached ExxonMobil, spent his teens in climate policy and community organizing, and studied EECS and business through UC Berkeley's M.E.T. program before raising a $1.3M pre-seed led by a16z Speedrun and Z Fellows.
Seyed Madaeni is the co-founder and CEO of Verse, a San Francisco energy-software company that uses AI to help large enterprises and AI data centers buy, plan, and dispatch clean power. A systems engineer with a PhD from Ohio State, he spent a decade building grid-scale market software at PG&E, SolarCity, Tesla, AMS, and Fluence before starting Verse, which raised a $54M Series B led by Bessemer in June 2026 with backing from NVIDIA and GV.
Christopher Gosline was the co-founder and first CEO of SYSO Technologies, a Boston company that turns passive solar, wind, and battery projects into active participants in wholesale power markets. Before SYSO, he ran a $100M+ software business at demand-response pioneer EnerNOC and helped build BlueWave Solar as a senior vice president. Trained in geographic information systems and energy policy, he spent more than two decades pushing toward a grid that runs without fossil fuels, and was known as much for the team he built as for the funding rounds he closed.
Tyba is a San Francisco-based climate software company that helps energy companies develop, model, and operate battery energy storage projects more profitably. Its AI-driven platform pairs a Project Simulation product - which backtests and forecasts revenue for storage assets in development - with an Asset Operations product that automates real-time bidding and dispatch in wholesale power markets like ERCOT and CAISO. Founded in 2022 by former energy developers and infrastructure engineers, Tyba positions itself as the 'autopilot for batteries,' emphasizing transparent, non-black-box optimization. The company raised a $13.9M Series A led by Energize Capital in February 2025.
Hammerhead AI is a Redwood City data center infrastructure startup that uses reinforcement learning agents to turn stranded power into usable AI compute. Its ORCA platform (Orchestrated RL Control Agents) coordinates power, cooling, and GPU workloads in real time so operators can raise token throughput by up to 30% within their existing power envelope - without waiting for new grid capacity. Founded in 2024 by former AutoGrid executives Rahul Kar and Rajeev Singh, the company emerged from stealth in November 2025 with a $10M seed round led by Buoyant Ventures.