A home-battery company that did not exist three years ago is now worth $13bn. Base Power has raised $1bn in a Series D and launched its own battery, Base Core. The bet behind the number is blunt: the grid cannot keep up with America’s power demand, and thousands of home batteries can.
The round values the Austin company at $13bn post-money and takes its total raised past $2.5bn, it said. It was led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor Equity Partners and JPMorganChase’s strategic investment arm. Existing backers including a16z, Thrive Capital, Lightspeed and CapitalG put in more.
Base Core is the product the money is meant to scale. Built at the company’s Austin factory, it is one of the largest home batteries on the market, rated at 39.2 or 78.4 kWh. Chief executive Zach Dell, son of Michael Dell, says it installs in under an hour and rides out extreme weather. It is on sale now in parts of Texas and Illinois.
The grid can’t build fast enough
The thesis rests on a shift we cover constantly from the other side. AI data centres and wider electrification are pushing power demand up faster than utilities can add supply. Building new generation is slow. Base’s answer is distributed: put a big battery in each home, then pool them into capacity the grid can lean on when demand peaks.
