A few months ago, we led Capalo AI’s €3.8M Seed round – a company on a mission to advance the energy transition by unlocking the full potential of energy storage. Since then, the team has continued to impress us with their execution, expanding across Europe and strengthening their position as a key player in the fast-growing energy flexibility space

Grid balancing (managing real time supply and demand of electricity on a grid level) has always been a challenging exercise for operators. Up until now, grid balance had been achieved by switching on and off the more flexible power generation assets, such as CCGT plants (Combined Cycle Gas Turbine) and similar assets, or by simply dumping overproduced electricity. As renewables scale, the problem is being amplified. The system is becoming far more volatile, faster-moving and way more complicate to balance

Batteries have emerged as the clear go-to technology for this new era: they are cost-effective, multi-functional, and can naturally store and release energy when needed most. Capalo AI provides the software intelligence that turns batteries into flexible, revenue-generating energy assets – optimising how storage is traded, managed, and deployed across the grid

We wanted to share why we originally invested in Capalo AI – and why we are even more excited about what lies ahead

Generational Opportunity & Perfect Timing

Power grids worldwide are entering a new era. Renewable energy from wind and solar is being added at an unprecedented pace, making electricity generation cleaner – but also more variable and harder to manage. Grid operators are already grappling with the volatility from weather-dependent power sources, which drives up costs and instability. In fact, the grid-scale energy storage market is growing about 70% year-over-year as batteries emerge as a crucial solution. In Finland alone, 18 GW of new battery projects sought grid connections last year – a staggering number (for comparison, that’s over ten times the output of Finland’s largest nuclear plant). This surge highlights an urgent need for flexibility in power systems

We see this as a generational opportunity to build technology that makes renewable energy reliable by bridging the gap between supply and demand. We believe the market timing is perfect – Capalo AI is bringing a solution that every grid will require as renewable penetration grows. The opportunity is huge: tens of gigawatts of storage will be deployed in the coming years, and intelligent optimisation will be critical to manage them all. Capalo AI sits right at the heart of this transformation, enabling grids to handle the volatility that comes with renewables

The Winning Approach with Built-In Network Effects

That is why we are thrilled to back Capalo AI, a startup at the forefront of this flexibility revolution. Capalo AI has developed an AI-driven virtual power plant platform that connects large-scale batteries into one and intelligently trades their energy in the market to balance the grid. By pooling many large-scale Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), Capalo AI maximises both the grid impact and the revenue for battery owners. With every new battery added, Capalo AI’s platform becomes more intelligent and valuable – each asset strengthens the system’s flexibility, trading accuracy, and data edge, creating powerful network effects that compound over time

Exceptional Team with a Bold Vision

From our first conversations with Henri Taskinen, Capalo AI’s Co-founder and CEO, it was clear we were speaking with a mission-driven, passionate team combining deep technical insight with relentless execution. The team brings together exceptional talent – high-performing AI engineers, mathematicians, physicists, cloud architects, and energy market experts – blending deep scientific expertise with the hunger and drive to win in a fast-changing industry. This is still a nascent space, and despite being early-stage, Capalo AI has already demonstrated strong commercial traction across multiple European markets – currently live in 4 countries and expanding rapidly

Capalo AI’s vision extends far beyond its early lead in Finland and the surrounding region. Henri and the team aspire to make Capalo AI a global leader in energy flexibility and battery trading, and we share that ambition. They have already expanded services across multiple countries. With the new funding, Capalo AI is gearing up to scale across Europe, turning its early lead in the Nordic/Baltic market into a pan-European footprint

We are proud to back Henri and the Capalo AI team as they accelerate the energy transition and build a global leader in energy flexibility