Member Spotlight: National Grid Partners
For this deep dive, we spoke to Pradeep Tagare, Head of Investments at National Grid Partners.
Tell us about your firm. What makes it different?
National Grid Partners is the utility industry’s only corporate venture investor in Silicon Valley. Our parent company, National Grid, is one of the world’s largest publicly traded energy utilities. National Grid Partners has been named the most active utility investor by Bloomberg NEF, with more than $450 million deployed across 46 companies and four specialty VC funds; seven successful exits since our founding in 2018; and an industry leading percentage of portfolio unicorns. We provide venture capital, business development support and access to more than 120 other utility companies around the world through our NextGrid Alliance.
What defines your portfolio?
We invest in emerging technology companies at the intersection of IT and energy for a smarter and more renewable future. We focus on technologies that will help create the electric networks of the future; engage National Grid’s customers; boost operational efficiency; and help decarbonize fossil fuel networks. We call these our Four Pillars, and they guide our investment decision-making.
Tell us about the current VC landscape in your geography/region.
Climate funding has slowed, as has all venture funding. At the same time, our mission – enabling a clean, fair and affordable energy future – isn’t going away; we believe strongly that startups and incumbent energy companies need each other to help our planet reach its net zero goals. And we’re actively looking to invest in startups that can help address those climate challenges – while making the energy system robust enough to handle a massive new demand for electricity, driven in large part by new technologies like AI and EVs.
What are the benefits of being an NVCA member?
Being an NVCA member has opened doors for us to connect and collaborate with other venture investors, both at NVCA events and well after. These events are not just great networking opportunities, but they provide useful information from other industry experts on topics like brand building and the current VC landscape. And as an energy transition CVC, being an NVCA member helps raise awareness that this is an area that’s investable and that solves the decarbonization problem.
What’s ahead for your firm?
National Grid Partners earlier this year announced a new leadership structure and refreshed investment focus on the Four Pillars to accelerate progress toward net zero and scale innovation across global energy networks. More recently, we announced a trio of new deals that took us past 50 portfolio investments and $450M deployed since our 2018 launch. We’re looking forward to more new investments this year while continuing to support our current portfolio companies with follow-on funding in this tight environment.
