Participated · Series B · Dec 2020

Founded in 2020, Zilch provides a BNPL card that allows users to pay via debit or credit and settle balances in interest-free instalments, with merchant advertising subsidies offsetting consumer costs. The company competes with Klarna and Clearpay in the UK consumer lending market. Zilch reports a customer base of more than 5 million and has previously been valued at roughly £1.5 billion. Its platform combines payments and marketing, giving merchants a channel to reach customers while offering shoppers flexible credit. The firm’s near-term priorities include ramping up marketing campaigns, advancing product development, and pursuing strategic acquisitions. Investors such as Goldman Sachs and eBay have backed the company in earlier rounds. Management claims the latest funding reinforces confidence in its strategy and ability to scale rapidly.

Participated · Equity · Dec 2019

Arcadia operates a utility data platform and manages a community solar program that unlocks energy data for businesses. Its platform is used to power solutions aimed at electrification and decarbonization. The company plans to use the recent financing to grow its community solar program and to invest in product innovation leveraging AI to enable new use cases built on its trove of energy data. Financially, Arcadia raised $50M in equity and concurrently closed a $30M credit facility with J.P. Morgan, and it amended an existing facility with TriplePoint Capital to lower its cost of capital. Macquarie Asset Management joined as a new equity investor alongside a group of existing backers. Founded in 2014 and led by CEO and founder Kiran Bhatraju, Arcadia is based in Washington, D.C. Arcadia builds the Arc platform, which unlocks energy data and exposes APIs so companies can build climate tech products and act on their environmental impact. The platform is used by over 300 new energy companies to personalize energy products and generate auditable carbon accounting reports, optimize EV charging schedules, create rooftop solar and storage proposals, and deliver community solar savings on a single bill. Led by founder and CEO Kiran Bhatraju, Arcadia focuses on enabling a zero-carbon economy through data-driven energy products. The company raised $125M to support continued development of the Arc platform and to accelerate its community solar business. Eric Scheyer of Magnetar will join Arcadia’s board as part of the financing. Arcadia is headquartered in Washington, DC. Arcadia operates the Arc data and API platform that supplies easy-to-use utility data, clean energy, and developer APIs to companies building climate and energy products. The company says its platform helps customers monitor, report, and act on their carbon impact and removes barriers around access to comprehensive utility data. Arcadia will use the new funding to expand data coverage — including commercial utility data — and to accelerate new product development and use cases. More than 100 innovators, including Ford, EnelX, Aurora Solar, and STEM, use Arc APIs across verticals such as EVs, solar, storage, and smart-home IoT. Recent momentum includes 155% year-over-year organic revenue growth in 2021, the November launch of the Arc platform, and passing a 700MW managed milestone as a leading manager of community solar in the U.S. The company has also added senior product and board hires as it scales the platform. Arcadia operates a platform that provides access to energy data and manages renewable energy programs, including the nation’s largest community solar subscriber portfolio. The company says the Arcadia Platform accesses more than 80 percent of U.S. electric utility accounts nationwide and manages a community solar portfolio expanded to 500 megawatts. Arcadia has pursued growth by acquiring Real Simple Energy and Nanogrid and by expanding product capabilities across new verticals such as electric vehicles and distributed energy resources. The company strengthened its executive team with hires including CFO John Rucker and Chief Data Officer Nancy Hersh. Arcadia plans to use new capital to accelerate its technology roadmap, scale its community solar offerings across residential and business sectors, attract talent, and broaden its product scope to make renewables more accessible and affordable. The company frames its work as enabling a decentralized, decarbonized power grid and advancing a 100 percent clean energy vision. Arcadia provides software that aggregates, analyzes, and packages a variety of energy options for residential utility customers, enabling access to community solar, wind, and virtual power purchase products. The company acts as a community solar manager and broker, connecting developers with buyers rather than financing or building projects itself. Arcadia reports hundreds of thousands of customers and finances hundreds of megawatts of community solar for developer partners. It is considered the country’s largest residential broker for retail electricity providers in competitive markets, with over $200 million in utility payments to date. The company currently serves customers in New York, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Washington, D.C., and plans expansion to Illinois, New Jersey, Colorado, and Massachusetts next year. Arcadia plans to release new energy subscription models in 2020 and expand financing options for in-home devices such as smart thermostats and LED lighting.

Participated · Series B · Mar 2019

Mollybox, run by Xolo (Cayman) Limited and led by founder and CEO Ju Yi, is a subscription-based pet food and supplies brand headquartered in Shanghai. Its core product is a monthly “Surprise Box” containing staple food, snacks, nutrition products and toys; users can subscribe monthly, quarterly or annually. The company also ships cat litter and food and markets the boxes as a way for owners to explore new products. As of the article, Mollybox has about 30,000 subscribers receiving its products. Financially, the company has completed multiple funding rounds since 2016, most recently closing a Series B in 2019.