Home battery startup Base Power is taking a decidedly Silicon Valley approach to residential energy. And, like many of its energy peers, the company is betting on data center “bring your own capacity” strategies to fuel its near-term growth.
Base, which closed its second billion-dollar raise in less than a year earlier this summer, aims to democratize residential backup power, leveraging both tech and business model innovations to increase “electricity and energy abundance on the path to human prosperity,” co-founder and CEO Zach Dell explained in an interview with Latitude Media.
Base designs, manufactures, installs, and operates its own batteries — and, Dell confirmed, potentially other energy products as the company expands in the wake of its latest raise.
The company’s vertically-integrated approach gives it control over the end-to-end experience of its customers, which it calls “members.” In the wider landscape of vertically-integrated battery companies, perhaps the most apt comparison is Tesla, whose original “Master Plan,” published in 2006, outlined a path for making successively cheaper, mass-market electric vehicles. Base’s basic approach to electricity is similar: pair technical innovation with vertical integration and domestic manufacturing, and scale to make a once-niche product ubiquitous.
