Lightshift Energy, an Arlington startup that builds energy storage systems with batteries, has raised $100 million from a repeat investor to significantly expand its workforce and project pipelines over the next year.
The Series B round brings the total outside funding for Lightshift, which is headquartered at Central Place in Rosslyn, to $120 million since its founding in 2019 by Michael Herbert and Rory Jones. The company was previously called Delorean Power.
The investment from two affiliates of Greenbacker Capital Management, a New York funder of renewable energy firms that gave the company $20 million in initial funding, has been split into two respective tranches.
An $80 million investment is earmarked for Lightshift's sustainable infrastructure assets, supporting capital-intensive construction and operations work behind its battery storage centers.
The remaining $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 the sales team. About 18 months ago, the company only had 10 employees.
During off-peak hours, Lightshift's battery systems siphons electricity from the grid when utilities offer it at its cheapest rates. The batteries then keep that power in storage until peak usage times arrive, at which point the electricity is then used.
It's never been more affordable nor has the battery technology been capable to support Lightshift's offering until now, Jones, the co-founder, told me during a phone interview. He said the company has 20 projects under contract, including one in Danville, Virginia, where it's estimated that Lightshift's utility-grade battery storage system will save the city more than $40 million in utility bills over its roughly 20-year lifespan.
"This technology has been around for a long time, but it has absolutely plummeted in cost in the last five years," Jones said. "We're witnessing something very similar to what happened with solar over the course of the last 20 years where that technology dropped by two orders of magnitude."
Jones said the startup is battery agnostic and that the industrial ones made by Tesla Inc. are an example of the types of batteries it sources from manufacturers for this product.
Building the battery storage units, which can be the size of half an acre, is a heavy up-front expense for the startup, Jones said. But over time, Lightshift's management of these systems and the fees it charges will turn the startup profitable, Jones said. The company is currently generating revenue but Jones declined to share specifics.
"There's a lot to this story, and it doesn't just involve the people and the steel in the ground: We're building, owning and operating these projects, we're managing these assets for 20-plus years," Jones said. "There's no shortage of opportunity for us to build as a company, build the team, build our IP, build our steel and our projects and build our visibility and partnership network."
