Energize Capital is proud to lead the $14M Series A investment in Tyba, a leading battery optimization platform. Investors Pear VC, Mobilize, and Borusan also joined the round alongside existing investors Powerhouse, Wireframe, Virta, and Lorimer. Tyba has now raised a total of more than $18M to-date. Energize Partner Tyler Lancaster joins the Tyba board, and Principal Ana Hugener joins as a board observer. This investment marks Energize’s second portfolio company in the battery software ecosystem, following our 2021 investment in TWAICE.
The U.S. grid is in an era of massive transformation. Following over twenty years of flat energy use, demand in the U.S. is now surging, with projections showing a 15.8% uptick in nationwide electric demand by 2029. This expanding grid is also becoming more complex; renewable energy—with its variable generation patterns—now accounts for about 21% of net energy supply in the U.S., creating new peaks of energy load that rarely correlate to consumer use periods. To provide reliable power, protect the grid, and increase capacity, large-scale energy storage is essential. These assets are now racing to catch up to renewable generation sources, with the U.S. expected to deploy nearly 12 GW of battery energy storage assets in 2024—a 42% increase over 2023. Nearly 90% of these battery assets will be used for grid-scale applications1.
Despite their key role in the energy transition, batteries have proven to be complex assets to deploy effectively and profitably. Unlike other renewable assets, they have capacity limits that require active, day-to-day management as operators control precisely when to store and release power to maximize returns. This has proven to be a very challenging task, and companies that have developed operating solutions in-house often lack the advanced logic and automation needed to achieve their revenue targets.
Learn more: Energize's 2024 Battery Software Deep Dive
Enter Tyba, a battery optimization platform that leverages AI to enhance the profitability of battery storage. Already optimizing over 500MW of storage across Texas and California, Tyba is becoming an essential solution for storage owners, renewables developers, independent power producers, and more to manage and deploy their assets effectively in a volatile energy market. Through their two product offerings, Tyba has helped their customers—including industry giants like TotalEnergies and Intersect Power—to increase efficiency, enhance asset yield, and drive meaningful returns. Within ERCOT (the power market controlling the majority of Texas), Tyba has delivered revenue 48% higher than median assets without risking reliability or regulatory missteps.
Tyba offers two major products that take aim at the management and deployment of battery assets. First, the Asset Operations Platform enables owners to configure, test and deploy automated bidding and real-time optimization strategies based on their project’s risk and asset specifications. The platform provides full transparency into forecasts, as well as strategy execution and performance metrics, and includes built-in adjustment levers that allow teams to easily make changes at any time. Additionally, Tyba’s Project Simulation product runs scenario analyses and backtesting, helping developers make better decisions around asset structure and placement. Both tools move beyond traditional black-box algorithms to help asset owners make informed choices and get the most out of their storage assets.
At Energize, we invest in climate solutions powering the energy transition. Our “Electrification of Everything” thesis focuses on the increased penetration of renewable energy sources, which rely on flexible assets like batteries to achieve reliability and profitability. By optimizing these assets, Tyba helps to make energy storage projects profitable for developers, reduces risk for investors, and ultimately accelerates the transition to a new energy economy.
Tyba was founded in Oakland, California, by Michael Baker, Tom Thunell, and Tyler Nisonoff, who now serve as CEO, COO, and CTO, respectively. Their diverse backgrounds—spanning renewables, technology scaling, and infrastructure engineering—converged around the shared conviction that storage assets will be essential to reliably decarbonizing the grid. While working in the renewables space, the founders recognized that individual companies were struggling to develop the tools necessary to keep storage assets online and profitable, slowing down the integration of these essential components. They committed to building a solution that was not only software-backed and cost-effective but also diverged from the typical “black-box” solutions to integrate with teams’ priorities and workflows, leading to Tyba’s flexible, operator-friendly platform.
This new capital infusion will help Tyba expand into new markets and optimize across all energy asset classes, unlocking full portfolio optimizations for multi-asset owners and providing financiers with better visibility into battery revenue outcomes and risk profiles. Tyba also looks forward to growing its team to fuel this next chapter of growth. The company has roles open across engineering, sales, marketing, and product—see Tyba’s job board to learn more.
We’re thrilled to partner with Tyba as they work to revolutionize battery storage optimization and accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more reliable grid.
1 BNEF, Energize Analysis
