The Venture Codex

Participated · Series A · Mar 2025

BetterFleet offers a SaaS platform for mission-critical transit, government, utilities, and logistics fleets that uses advanced AI and digital twin technology to support fleet planning, procurement, implementation, and operations. Its platform helps fleets select the right vehicles and infrastructure, keep assets ready for service, minimize operating costs, and capture data-driven insights for continuous performance improvement. The company is led by CEO Daniel Hilson and is the new brand name of EVenergi. BetterFleet is used by more than 200 fleets worldwide. The company raised $15M to support its growth. It intends to use the funding to accelerate expansion of its user base across Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America. Evenergi builds the BetterFleet platform, an intelligent software solution that helps organizations plan and manage transitions to zero-emission vehicle fleets with a data-driven approach. BetterFleet offers a single platform for fleet operators to plan, manage, and accelerate electrification while reducing costs and risks. The company markets the platform across the United States, Europe, and Asia Pacific. Evenergi serves over 200 complex fleets across North America, Europe, Singapore, and Australia. The company plans to use new funding to expand its North American presence through team expansion, research and development, marketing, and go-to-market activities. Founded in 2016 by Daniel Hilson and Nick Butlin, Evenergi focuses on improving financial, operational, and environmental efficiency for fleet operators. Evenergi operates the Charge Together Fleets program and a free online platform called BetterFleet to help fleet managers build business cases and procurement plans for electric vehicle (EV) adoption. The company provides a knowledge base, peer-to-peer learning, national procurement initiatives, and a webinar series to accelerate fleet electrification. Over 100 Australian fleets, including NRMA, Charles Sturt University and Ausgrid, have signed up to the program. Evenergi is also developing an Australia-wide planning tool for electricity distributors to forecast and manage EV impacts, with Ausgrid as the first user and a planned launch in early 2020. Next year it will launch a consumer-facing online platform and smartphone app to help private buyers find suitable EVs, arrange test drives, and set up home charging. The project backing Evenergi includes $469,380 in funding from ARENA and is part of a $1.05 million initiative supported by NSW and South Australian governments, Ausgrid and NRMA. Evenergi expects the program to help deliver tens of thousands of EVs onto Australian roads over the next five years.

Participated · Equity · Mar 2025

XGS Energy builds a proprietary solid-state, water-independent geothermal system that uses thermally conductive materials to produce round-the-clock baseload power anywhere there is hot rock. Its Thermal Reach Enhancement (TRE) technology completed a shallow field test in 2024, and the company is operating its first commercial-scale well in California, validating predictive performance models and accumulating operating history. XGS positions its modular approach to decouple geothermal from traditional water- and geology-dependent constraints, aiming to unlock geographic flexibility, easier permitting, and faster deployment. The firm says it has a multi-gigawatt commercial project pipeline across the Western United States and is ramping commercial operations ahead of a planned growth equity round later this year. XGS is headquartered in Houston, Texas, and plans to aggressively expand its team through year-end to support deployment and project development. The company’s approach targets improved financeability to attract venture and infrastructure capital for large-scale geothermal projects. XGS Energy has developed a proprietary slurry — a mix of water, surfactants and conductive minerals (patent filings mention graphite‑like materials and silica) — that is injected between a metal casing and surrounding rock to fill cracks and improve heat conduction. The slurry’s surfactant breaks at higher temperatures, releasing minerals that settle into fractures a few feet from the borehole, permitting the company to use a single cased borehole rather than multiple wells. By keeping working fluid isolated inside the metal casing, XGS can avoid contaminated surface water and use lower‑cost, higher‑efficiency heat exchangers, reducing operating costs. CEO Josh Prueher says the technique makes wells more productive and predictable — “we know within 30 days where we’re going to be in 30 years” in terms of power production. XGS’s technology can be applied to both new and existing geothermal wells, and the company plans to develop a version for suitably hot legacy oil and gas wells to avoid plugging and abandonment costs. To help commercialize the technology, XGS recently raised funding to build a commercial‑scale prototype at an existing geothermal field in California. XGS Energy is a geothermal company headquartered in Palo Alto, California that develops a proprietary Thermal Reach Enhancement™ (TRE) system and closed-loop well architecture. Its TRE system uses materials the company says are 50 times more conductive than native rock to deliver high-efficiency thermal energy without dependence on water or specific geology. XGS positions the technology for global deployment and says it enables terawatt-scale geothermal heat and power. The company completed more than 24 months of lab testing and is building a North American prototype to demonstrate TRE at full commercial scale. That prototype is intended to validate predictive performance models and support first commercial projects in the Western United States, Japan, and the Philippines. XGS emphasizes that its closed-loop, water-independent approach allows deployment anywhere in the world, unlike traditional geothermal solutions that require hot water reservoirs and specific geological formations. XGS Energy develops proprietary geothermal heat-harvesting technology and a closed-loop well architecture intended to unlock scalable, affordable, carbon-free baseload power. The technology is designed to eliminate reliance on rare geological formations and water availability, allowing broader deployment of geothermal energy. XGS says its approach enables global deployment and terawatt-scale geothermal heat and power. The company plans to use recent financing to accelerate technology development and commercial progress. XGS announced a $19M financing package, including a $14M Series A led by Anzu Partners, to support development efforts. Headquartered in Palo Alto, the company changed its name from Geothermic Solution LLC to XGS Energy, Inc.

Participated · Equity · Feb 2025

CarbonQuest develops a modular, solid-sorbent Distributed Carbon Capture™ system that captures CO2 from buildings and onsite power generation, liquifies it, and transports it to local users. The company has proven its modular, stackable process in six commercial deployments. CarbonQuest plans to scale deployments across North America and address markets that rely on onsite power or reuse CO2 onsite. It aims to achieve the lowest $/ton in the carbon capture industry and to improve system efficiency. The company will use new funding to hire industry talent, expand its project pipeline, and accelerate commercialization. CarbonQuest has pursued partnerships to accelerate deployment, including a December 2024 MoU with Carbfix to identify sites for capture and mineralization.

Participated · Series A · Feb 2023

ChargerHelp! provides operations, maintenance and workforce development for the electric vehicle charging industry through an app-based dispatch and deployment system that enables on-demand repairs and maintenance by trained local workforces. Led by CEO Kameale C. Terry and based in Los Angeles, the company addresses industrywide problems of downed charging stations. Early last year ChargerHelp! launched Reliability as a Service (RaaS), a labor subscription service that supports charging station owners and operators. The company intends to use its new funding to build out the EMPWR reliability software platform. ChargerHelp! also plans to expand its RaaS offering and grow its workforce development programs. The Series A proceeds are intended to scale both the software and service sides of its operations and maintenance business. ChargerHelp operates an on-demand repair app and preventative maintenance service for electric vehicle charging stations, dispatching trained technicians to diagnose and fix non-electrical issues. The company works directly with charging manufacturers and network providers and has landed contracts with customers including EV Connect, ABB and SparkCharge. ChargerHelp uses a workforce-development hiring model, recruiting cohorts, training technicians (paid stipends and safety licenses) and paying full-time technicians a guaranteed $30/hour plus equity. It has run pilots with Tellus Power, raised about $400,000 in grant funding, and trained and deployed technicians across six states. The startup planned to use new funding to build out its platform, hire beyond its 27-person workforce and expand its service area. ChargerHelp was founded in January 2020 and is based in Los Angeles.

Led · Series A · Feb 2023

BoxPower offers an integrated ecosystem of hardware and software that enables utilities to identify, design, build, operate, and maintain solar-plus-storage remote microgrids. Its modular hardware and software tools support turnkey engineering, construction, and ongoing management of microgrids as alternatives to traditional distribution infrastructure. The company targets rural and underserved areas and focuses on accelerating deployment of utility-grade, standalone clean energy resources. BoxPower designed, built, and will maintain PG&E’s first fully renewable remote microgrid in California, completed in November 2023, and is developing additional microgrids across California for various utilities. The business emphasizes cost-effective, more reliable service to replace distribution lines and improve resilience against aging infrastructure and natural disasters. BoxPower is based in Grass Valley, California. BoxPower designs and deploys compact, solar-powered microgrid ‘mini power stations’ composed of solar arrays, large batteries and backup propane generators. The systems are sited within roughly 250 feet of customers and deliver power via low-voltage underground wiring to eliminate overhead distribution lines. BoxPower serves utilities as well as residential, commercial and agricultural customers with islanded systems not connected to the main grid. The company currently operates more than 35 microgrids across California, Puerto Rico, Alaska and Hawaii. Management says it is on track to deploy an additional 25–30 microgrid systems this year. BoxPower is based in Grass Valley, California and recently raised financing to support growth.