Led · Equity · Jan 2023

Founded in 2011 and based in Nashville, Silicon Ranch is a fully integrated provider of customized renewable energy, carbon, and battery storage solutions for partners across North America. The company develops, owns, and operates its entire portfolio and is one of the largest independent power producers in the U.S., with more than five gigawatts of solar and battery storage systems contracted, under construction, or operating. In 2022 Silicon Ranch installed eleven new solar facilities that produce nearly 700 megawatts of capacity, signed well over 1,100 MW in new contracted capacity, and brought its contracted portfolio to more than 5 GW. It operates a growing portfolio of more than 150 PV plants across 15 states and has maintained an unblemished track record of commissioning every project it has contracted. Financially, the company completed a $600 million equity raise (with $375 million closed in December 2022 and $225 million expected in early 2023) and, combined with a $775 million raise earlier in 2022, has secured in excess of $1 billion in new equity capital over the past year. Silicon Ranch plans to grow its team in 2023 to support engineering, procurement, and construction for its contracted pipeline, operate and maintain its operating portfolio, and accelerate development of new projects to meet customer needs. Silicon Ranch Corporation is a fully integrated provider of customized renewable energy, carbon, and battery storage solutions across North America. Founded in 2011 by CEO Reagan Farr and based in Nashville, Tenn., the company owns, operates, and maintains more than 150 solar generating facilities in 15 states. Its portfolio includes over 4 gigawatts of solar and battery storage systems that are contracted, under construction, or operating across the U.S. and Canada. In September 2021 the company acquired Clearloop to expand offerings for corporate buyers seeking renewable energy, decarbonization, and broader ESG goals. Silicon Ranch intends to use the $775M equity funding to rapidly grow across North America. The company pioneered utility-scale solar in the Southeast with early large-scale projects in Tennessee, Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Kentucky.

Participated · Series D · Apr 2013

Quantance is a San Mateo, CA-based manufacturer of 4G/LTE envelope tracking (ET) power supplies. Its flagship product is the Q845 qBoost™ ET Power Supply, built on the company's patented qBoost™ Envelope Tracking technology. The technology is designed to improve data upload speeds, network capacity and service coverage for smartphones, tablets, WiFi hotspots and other high-speed mobile data devices. The company intends to use the capital to support production of the Q845 and to fund planned product innovations and enhancements. Quantance raised $12m in a Series D round backed by TD Fund, Granite Ventures, InterWest Partners and DoCoMo Capital. Vikas Vinayak is CEO and co-founder. Quantance develops power management products and ultrafast power supplies aimed at improving speed, performance and network coverage for smartphones, tablets and data cards. The company has patented and field-tested technology and is led by CEO and co-founder Vikas Vinayak. Quantance raised $11M in a Series C financing to support product expansion and hiring. The firm intends to expand its family of power management products, including ultrafast power supplies for 4G devices. Management plans to grow the employee base by at least 50% this year. Quantance has offices in San Mateo, CA, plus locations in Beaverton, OR and Flagstaff, AZ. Quantance designs analog radio-frequency chips intended to boost the output of power amplifiers in cell phones, increasing signal strength and data throughput. Its Q100 chip is available in engineering samples and is designed for use in current 3G handsets and future 4G (WiMax/LTE) devices. The company says carrier‑audited tests in the U.S. and Europe show improved coverage and faster data networks. Quantance completed the Q100 with a very small team (8 engineers at that time; 13 employees total now), and holds patents in “radio frequency transmit chain efficiency.” Management expects the chip to be built into new phones next year and hopes to hit high‑volume production in the second quarter of 2009. The firm anticipates competition from established power‑amplifier vendors such as National Semiconductor, Maxim Integrated Products and RF Micro Devices. Quantance raised outside funding to commercialize the product and is preparing for broader market deployment.

Led · Series B · Jan 2012

HelloWallet is a personal finance software platform that helps users track and proactively manage their finances via web and mobile. It aims to act as a full-service financial advisor that uncovers savings opportunities and potential threats for members while refusing to allow banks to advertise on the service. The platform supports goal-setting for milestones like buying a home, saving for retirement, reducing debt, and saving for college, modeling tuition for nearly every U.S. college to make individualized education-savings recommendations. Since launching its enterprise application in mid-2011, the company has sold more than 300,000 subscriptions. Its personalized guidance has reportedly increased average members’ monthly savings contributions by over 80%, translating to roughly $350 in additional savings per member each month. HelloWallet plans to use new funding to further product development, expand its business development team, and grow its client base. HelloWallet provides personal finance software that helps users track and proactively manage their finances and set specific short- and long-term goals. The service aims to act as a full-service financial advisor, uncovering savings opportunities and potential threats while refusing bank advertising to keep recommendations free of business interests. HelloWallet stores tuition information for nearly every college and university across the country and uses that data to make individualized education-savings recommendations. The company partners with organizations such as Ernst & Young to provide its online advisory and currently reaches more than 3.5 million people. HelloWallet launched in March and charges around $5 per month; it also pledges to give a free subscription to one needy family for every five paying members. The startup plans to use its new funding to further product development and build out its business development team.

Participated · Series B · Jul 2011

Virtustream provides enterprise-class cloud solutions including xStream cloud management software and the Virtustream Cloud IaaS, engineered (µVM technology) to run complex, mission‑critical applications such as SAP. Its platform is certified to deploy the full line of SAP business applications and was named a flagship partner in SAP’s HANA Enterprise Cloud. The company offers private, public and hybrid cloud deployments and backs solutions with professional services for design, migration and management. Virtustream owns data centers in the U.S. and EMEA and maintains offices in Washington DC, San Francisco, Atlanta, London and Dubai. The company emphasizes enterprise-grade security, compliance, multi-tenant efficiency, performance SLAs and consumption-based charging. It recently closed a $40 million Series D led by SAP and will use proceeds to add IaaS capacity and accelerate xStream development. Virtustream offers enterprise-class cloud solutions including xStream, a cloud management platform for private/public/hybrid clouds, and the Virtustream Cloud, a secure, high-availability IaaS with performance SLAs for mission-critical applications such as SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft. The company provides professional services to design, migrate, and manage customer clouds and supports complex production workloads. Virtustream owns data centers in the U.S. and EMEA, operates an international Cloud Exchange called SpotCloud®, and maintains offices across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Virtustream serves enterprises, governments, and service providers worldwide through direct operations and regional partners. The company is pursuing product enhancements and geographic and vertical expansion to meet escalating enterprise cloud demand. Recent financing was secured to accelerate these product and market expansion plans. Virtustream offers strategy, integration and managed services built around virtualization technologies and its xStream cloud provisioning platform. xStream enables enterprise customers to access highly elastic cloud computing resources on a consumption-based pricing model similar to Amazon EC2. The company targets management of private, virtual private, public and hybrid cloud environments. Virtustream plans to use the new funding for product development of xStream and to expand its geographic coverage. The company intends to enhance xStream with cloud federation and cloud exchange capabilities to combine private clouds, virtual private clouds and public clouds. The article reports a recent $15 million financing, bringing the company’s total funding to $75 million. Virtustream offers strategy, integration and managed services built on virtualization technologies and sells xStream, its cloud provisioning platform. xStream enables enterprise customers to access highly elastic cloud computing resources on a consumption-based pricing model similar to Amazon EC2. The company plans to productize xStream into a distributable "cloud O/S" software product. Virtustream will use new funding for branding, marketing and advertising and to expand market presence in San Francisco and London. The firm recently raised additional capital, bringing its total funding to date to $59 million. The proceeds are intended to support productization and commercial expansion initiatives. Virtustream provides infrastructure services built around its xStream hybrid enterprise cloud platform, which guarantees compute resources across aggregate client workloads whether hosted in the company’s data center or on a customer’s premises. The xStream platform, introduced in March, is positioned as the first hybrid enterprise cloud platform with guaranteed compute resources and is based on the company’s more than nine years of virtualization experience. Virtustream says xStream increases operational efficiency and improves business continuity, typically delivering a 40–60% ROI without employee headcount reduction. The company plans to use recent financing to support continued development of its infrastructure and to expand the xStream platform. Virtustream maintains offices in Washington, D.C., London, Dublin and the Channel Islands. The product- and operations-focused description in the articles emphasizes platform performance and expansion rather than specific revenue or user metrics.