Exclusive: Branch Energy raises $33M to grow outside Texas
Illustration: Tiffany Herring/Axios
Branch Energy, a startup installing batteries in commercial buildings, has raised a $33 million Series B, CEO Alex Ince-Cushman tells Axios Pro exclusively.
Why it matters: There is a surge in grid battery installations to help manage the boom in electricity demand for AI data centers.
Zoom in: Piva Capital and Clean Energy Ventures led the round.
- Prelude Ventures, Zero Infinity Partners, Inovia, Whitecap, and Active Impact Investments participated.
What's next: The financing will help the Houston-based Branch expand outside Texas for the first time, beginning in Illinois, Ince-Cushman says.
- Branch sees a big opportunity in the newly launched flexible capacity program from Voltus in the PJM region, and plans to move into Illinois first.
- Branch Energy is also in talks to raise funds for the deployment of its battery systems, says Ince-Cushman.
Catch up quick: Branch Energy closed a $10.8 million Series A in 2024 led by Prelude Ventures and Zero Infinity Partners.
How it works: Batteries paired with software can make building electricity smarter, cleaner, and more efficient.
- In the PJM territory, hyperscalers like Google have committed to finance flexible capacity programs, and batteries can be used to provide that on-demand capacity.
- The programs can be launched much more quickly and at a lower cost than new power generation can be built.
What they're saying: "BYOC [Bring Your Own Capacity] is going to be a huge thing that will be very large in PJM and will be copied everywhere because it's going to be such an efficient way to get stuff deployed," Ince-Cushman says.
By the numbers: Global energy-storage additions, excluding pumped hydro, rose 48% in 2025 from the year before, according to BloombergNEF.
- The U.S. power sector added more battery capacity in the second quarter of this year than in any quarter ever, per research from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
What we're watching: If the rest of the country adopts flexible capacity programs, grid batteries could take off even more.
