The Fire Awards: Lightshift Energy

Editor's note: Each year, DC Inno and the Washington Business Journal publish the Fire Awards spotlighting the founders, funders and fast-growing companies helping to power Greater Washington’s innovation economy. Click here to read our other profiles.

Fueled by a whopping $100 million investment in March from two affiliates of New York’s Greenbacker Capital Management, Lightshift Energy is revving to beef up its staff and expand services into the Southeast and Midwest.

The Arlington startup builds battery-powered energy storage systems designed to reduce the demand on grid systems during peak hours and provide clean, renewable energy, also during peak hours. The systems take electricity from the grid during off-peak hours and later act as backups to provide power without straining the grid.

Its clients are primarily utility companies and localities, and the energy from its storage systems is used to power homes, schools, hospitals and just about any business. Most of its storage facilities, which can be as large as half an acre, are in the Northeast, but the 5-year-old company intends to use the bulk of the proceeds from its recent capital raise to expand into new markets. 

Co-founder and Managing Partner Rory Jones estimates a facility it’s building in Danville, Virginia, will cut the city’s energy bills by more than $40 million over its 20-year lifespan.  

About $80 million of the money it raised will fund the geographic expansion and the other $20 million will go toward increasing Lightshift’s 30-person workforce to about 45 people in the next 12 to 18 months with a focus on building up the sales team. A year and a half ago, the company had only 10 employees.

Jones said the startup is battery agnostic and that the industrial batteries made by Tesla Inc. are an example of the types of batteries it sources from manufacturers for this product.

The company is not making money yet because building the battery storage units is a heavy up-front expense. But over time, Lightshift’s management of these systems and the fees it charges will turn the startup profitable, Jones said.

Lightshift Energy