Heirloom Carbon Technologies is a San Francisco-based direct air capture company that uses limestone's natural CO2-absorbing properties to pull carbon dioxide permanently out of the atmosphere. Their process accelerates a geological phenomenon that normally takes thousands of years into a 3-day cycle: calcium oxide powder absorbs CO2 from ambient air, becomes limestone, gets heated in a renewable-energy-powered electric kiln to release the captured CO2, and repeats. The captured CO2 is then stored permanently underground or embedded in concrete. Founded in 2020, Heirloom opened America's first commercial DAC facility in Tracy, California in November 2023 and has raised over $354 million to expand capacity toward their goal of removing 1 billion tons of CO2 by 2035.
Nicholas Flanders is the Co-Founder and CEO of Twelve, a carbon transformation company that converts CO2, water, and renewable electricity into sustainable aviation fuel and carbon-neutral chemicals. A Stanford MBA and former McKinsey consultant, Flanders co-founded Twelve (originally Opus 12) in 2015 alongside scientists Dr. Etosha Cave and Dr. Kendra Kuhl to commercialize breakthrough electrochemical CO2 conversion technology developed at Stanford. The company has raised over $790 million, including a $645 million financing round in 2024 led by TPG Rise Climate, and is building AirPlant One - the world's first commercial-scale e-fuels facility - in Moses Lake, Washington.
Ryan Hanley is the Founder and CEO of Equilibrium Energy, the company building PowerOS - an agentic AI platform purpose-built for the power industry. A civil engineer turned energy executive, Hanley spent nearly two decades inside the machine of grid transformation at PG&E, SolarCity, Tesla, and Shell before founding Equilibrium in 2021. With $100M+ raised and NRG Energy as a production customer, he is making a direct bet that AI can unify the fragmented data and systems that hold the power grid back.
Terabase Energy is a Berkeley, California company building the digital and automation backbone for utility-scale solar construction. Its flagship Terafab automated field factory and Construct software platform are designed to slash the cost and time of building solar power plants at terawatt scale.
ECL (EdgeCloudLink) builds the world's first modular, off-grid data centers powered by green hydrogen fuel cells. Founded by data-center veteran Yuval Bachar, ECL delivers Tier 4 uptime with zero emissions, zero grid power, and a PUE under 1.1 - selling capacity in 1-2 MW modular blocks designed for high-density AI compute.
Raptor Maps builds the operating system for utility-scale solar. Its cloud platform combines drone thermography, digital twins, AI anomaly detection, and asset-performance analytics so solar owners, operators, and OEMs can find faults, plan maintenance, and squeeze more energy out of every panel across hundreds of sites.
Swift Solar is a San Carlos, California startup building perovskite tandem solar cells that aim to beat silicon on both efficiency and cost. Spun out of Stanford, MIT, Oxford and NREL in 2017, the company is now scaling toward gigawatt manufacturing in the United States after a $27M Series A and the 2026 acquisition of Meyer Burger's HJT manufacturing assets and patents.
Dirk Morbitzer is a senior executive and consultant with 25+ years of experience in renewable energy, solar, and cleantech. He is CEO of DIMOCO Inc., a boutique consulting firm specializing in solar and energy storage, and is a top 1% expert in the Energy Group at GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group). Previously CEO North America and Group CEO of AEROCOMPACT Group Holding AG, and before that Director of Strategic Sourcing at Sunrun for eight years, Morbitzer brings deep expertise in strategic sourcing, international supply chain management, M&A, and PE investment navigation across Europe, Asia, and North America.
Fernando Llaver is the CEO and Co-Founder of Splight, a San Francisco-based AI company that unlocks hidden transmission capacity on existing electricity grids using machine learning - without building new infrastructure. A veteran of more than two decades in the energy industry, he left a C-level role to co-found Splight in 2021 alongside CTO Thomas Vadora and Chief Data Scientist Carlos Caldart. Splight's Dynamic Congestion Management technology now manages over 6 gigawatts of grid assets across the U.S., Europe, and Latin America, and has raised $28.1M in total funding. Llaver was invited by the International Energy Agency to join global leaders in Paris to discuss energy and AI, and is a member of the Unreasonable Group portfolio of entrepreneurs tackling major global challenges.
Abe Tarapani is the CEO of Atlas AI, a Palo Alto-based geospatial AI company that uses satellite imagery and machine learning to generate actionable insights on economic, agricultural, and infrastructure trends across emerging markets. A Yale-trained electrical engineer and Presidential Scholar recognized by the Clinton White House, Tarapani has spent nearly two decades at the intersection of renewable energy, data for development, and social impact. He joined Atlas AI in October 2020, steering a company founded by Stanford professors toward enterprise partnerships with the World Bank, DARPA, McKinsey, and Airbus, while earning recognition as a 2024 Google Cloud Partner of the Year and Gavi INFUSE Pacesetter.
Banks Hunter is the co-founder and CEO of Charge Robotics, a Berkeley-based startup building the world's first fully automated solar construction system. An MIT mechanical engineering alumnus and veteran of medical robotics startup Vicarious Surgical, Hunter co-founded Charge Robotics in 2021 with Max Justicz to solve one of clean energy's most stubborn bottlenecks: the physical, labor-intensive grunt work of assembling a utility-scale solar farm. His company's Sunrise system - a portable robotic assembly line shipped directly to job sites - autonomously puts together 800-pound solar bays and deploys them in the field, aiming to make solar installation as repeatable and scalable as factory production. Backed by Founders Fund, Lux Capital, Energy Impact Partners, and Y Combinator, Charge Robotics has raised over $39 million to accelerate the energy transition.
Hannes Boehning is the CEO and founder of Blumen Systems, a San Francisco-based AI company building environmental intelligence software that converts complex regulatory documents and geospatial datasets into permitting matrices, site layouts, and engineering documents for energy infrastructure developers. A Stanford-trained engineer and former Division I athlete, Boehning left roles at Rothschild & Co and Fortress Investment Group to found Blumen in 2023, raising $6.39M from Climate Capital to tackle one of the biggest bottlenecks in the clean energy transition: the permitting process.
Patrick Sullivan is the Co-Founder and CEO of EV Realty, a San Francisco-based company building grid-scale private charging hubs for commercial electric truck fleets. Drawing on 15+ years developing nearly 9 GW of renewable energy projects at firms including Clearway Energy Group, NRG Energy, and BrightSource Energy, Sullivan identified that the real barrier to fleet electrification wasn't the trucks - it was the real estate and grid access. EV Realty's 'Powered Properties' model acquires strategically located industrial sites near freight corridors, locks in large grid capacity, and offers fleets reserved or on-route DC fast charging up to 1.2 MW. The company has raised over $103 million, including a $75M growth equity commitment from NGP in September 2025, and operates or has in development five charging hubs across California.
Steve Kelley is a serial clean-energy entrepreneur and CEO of L-Charge, the Sunnyvale-based pioneer of off-grid ultra-fast EV charging for commercial fleets. With six successful startup exits and over two decades building energy and mobility ventures, Kelley co-founded Green Charge Networks (acquired by Engie), scaled InCharge Energy's revenues nearly tenfold, and in October 2025 took the helm at L-Charge to push its grid-free Charging-as-a-Service model nationwide. Under his leadership, L-Charge closed a $10 million funding round in January 2026, enabling fleet operators to electrify in weeks rather than months by bypassing grid bottlenecks entirely.
Matthew Zeitlin is an economics and energy journalist currently reporting for Heatmap News, where he covers the intersection of policy, finance, and the energy transition. With bylines at BuzzFeed News, Grid, Slate, The Nation, n+1, Bloomberg Opinion, and The Atlantic, Zeitlin has built a career dissecting how money, power, and policy shape the energy grid. He writes a personal economics newsletter on Substack and is one of the sharper voices covering how the U.S. economy navigates decarbonization.