Startup Series: WeaveGrid
Today's guest is Apoorv Bhargava, Co-Founder & CEO of WeaveGrid.
Apoorv Bhargava is the co-founder and CEO of WeaveGrid. The startup uses machine learning to help utilities predict and manage large spikes in power demand from electric vehicle charging to balance renewable energy production and reduce the need for costly upgrades to the grid. Apoorv has always been passionate about climate and energy his whole career. He previously worked at Opower and The Boston Consulting Group. Before that, Apoorv spent time at NRG Energy, Joby Aviation, and The Capricorn Investment Group. He holds an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and an MS in Energy & Resources from Stanford University. Additionally, Apoorv was featured on this year's GreenBiz and Forbes' 30 Under 30 lists.
In this episode, Apoorv explains what motivated him to found WeaveGrid and the problems he observed with transport electrification and renewables' rise in the power sector. We also dive into a lively discussion on WeaveGrid's scalability and business model, how the startup navigates the complex utility ecosystem in the US, and roadblocks to successful grid electrification. Apoorv is a great guest. This is a fantastic episode for those interested in grid electrification and the energy transition.
Enjoy the show!
You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@mcjcollective.com, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.
Episode recorded February 16th, 2022
In Today's episode, we cover:
An overview of WeaveGrid
Apoorv's motivations for starting WeaveGrid and the origin story of the company
The problems Apoorv observed with the electrification of transportation and the rise of renewable energy in the power sector and why they don't play nice
WeaveGrid's customers from the utility to EV owners and the value proposition for both parties
WeaveGrid's business model and the various components that make it up
WeaveGrid's scale and customer base today
The variety within the utility ecosystem from region to region and how WeaveGrid navigates this confusing landscape
How WeaveGrid balances providing excellent quality versus large scale and the future of utilities in the US
The competition WeaveGrid faces and how they interact with other solutions in the marketplace
How individual action affects a systems-level problem
Stuck points for successful grid electrification more broadly
Why we have to be careful when using the word storage in a discussion about grid electrification
The role of government and policy in grid electrification
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Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey or MCJ, as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to the show that weren't just looking for education. But they were longing for a peer group as well.
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Beyond that, the more diversity, the better. There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of non-profits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and four members, and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to myclimatejourney.co, the website, and click the Become a Member tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jacobs, and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Today's guest is Apoorv Bhargava, CEO and co-founder of WeaveGrid. WeaveGrid is a company that uses machine learning to help utilities predict and manage large spikes in power demand from electric vehicle charging in order to balance renewabsle energy production and reduce the need for costly upgrades to the grid.
I was excited for this one because Apoorv was one of the very first people I met on my Climate Journey three and a half years ago. He's been very generous with his time and with his knowledge sharing. And he's also just been working on these problems for a long time. So, it's fascinating that he is very climate motivated, has a lot of experience in these domains, is building a software company selling into utilities, and one that can have a real impact on climate if it's successful.
And they've been busy gobbling up some of the best and brightest talent from traditional tech as it migrates more in the climate direction. At any rate, we cover a lot of ground in this episode including utilities, what it will take to decarbonize the grid, the difference between US versus other key markets around the world. We talk about the rise of EVs, what some of the challenges are that utilities have to deal with, what their incentives are to change, how that passes along to the consumer, and what the consumer's value proposition is to participate in offerings that the utility rolls out to assist in this process.
We talk about the state of the landscape today where things are going and, of course, where WeaveGrid fits in. At any rate, I really enjoyed this one. And I hope you do as well. Apoorv, welcome to the show.
Apoorv Bhargava: Thanks, Jason. Excited to be here finally.
Jason Jacobs: I know it is finally because I met you super early on my climate journey. And it's been three and a half years already that I've been on this stupid thing. So, so psyched to finally pin you down and, and get your degree to come on. I have a lot of questions for you, sir.
Apoorv Bhargava: I'm excited as we were just starting to talk about. And then, you rightfully said, "Hey, wait. Let's actually put this on the pod." We did catch up, God, three, three and a half... yeah, three and a half years ago. And I think you were truly on your... the early days of your Climate Journey. I know there's many years still to go here. So, yeah. I, I remember. I think I was just saying like I think we went for like a long walk down the Embarcadero in SF.
And that was... It was a ton of fun. It was great to hear where you had come from, what you were thinking about, why you were passionate... had a growing passion for climate. And I managed, uh, [laughs] to both share and maybe, maybe talk your ear off about all the things I thought we needed to do in climate which, yeah, good or bad. Like, I guess we're, we're doing some of those things. So-
Jason Jacobs: Well, you're an example of a, a welcoming veteran who's been at this a heck of a lot longer than, than I have. But we're eager and excited about the new blood coming in, and, and really generous with your time and, and your knowledge as well. So, a belated thank you for that.
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah, absolutely. It's funny, you see, the veteran status it's, you know, I know you've had some of my really close friends like Tim Latimer and other folks on the show before and, like, I think Tim and I often joke-
Jason Jacobs: Why did it only take you two minutes to bring up Tim Latimer in, in this discussion? [laughs] That is not a surprise at all. [crosstalk 00:05:02]
Apoorv Bhargava: Tim is one of my really close friends and, I think, a fellow climate entrepreneur. We went to grad school together at the same time.
And it was funny because Tim at Fervo Energy, Tim and I are… we often joke that we're seen as sort of the veterans in the same way that like there's young and early millennials. I think we're sort of the like later age of the veterans of 1.0. It's just that we've worked in those companies. We've seen that era.
But we're definitely not the people who live the ups and downs. Let's put it that way. But, yeah. I mean I'll say this like as somebody who saw the dark ages [laughs] between sort of Cleantech 1.0 and Climate Tech taking off, I do think that just the infusion of new people, new capital, new companies, new ideas, it's been one of the most amazing experiences of my life because I'm just so psyched. And it's, it's honestly changed me from somebody who's gone from being very nervous to being a hell of a lot more optimistic about what we can do about climate.
And I don't think I've ever been a pessimist. But I've definitely been somebody who's like my optimism continues to grow frankly just based on everything I see. So, I'm psyched. So, thank you. Thank you for inspiring all these amazing people [crosstalk 00:06:22].
Jason Jacobs: I take full credit. Anyone that comes in-
Apoorv Bhargava: You should.
Jason Jacobs: ... I'll take credit.
Apoorv Bhargava: You should. You should take the [crosstalk 00:06:29] [laughs].
Jason Jacobs: Well, taking it from the top, Apoorv, what's WeaveGrid?
Apoorv Bhargava: So, WeaveGrid is, I'm gonna start with maybe a little bit of a wonky definition and then start to unravel that. But we've got as a software company. We're one of the, I won't say a few, but definitely one of the, the relatively few climate tech companies that is a pure software company. And we focus on what's known as vehicle grid integration.
So, we think about how we can take all these electric vehicles and ensure that they come on to the system where the system that we're thinking a lot about is the electric grid, and how we can tie those two huge very independent systems together in an intelligent way. Now, what is vehicle grid integration? It really is... I think it's a series of different things that terms evolved over time. You know, it goes all the way from just understanding behavior all the way through to thinking about how you manage the charging of electric vehicles or, in some cases, even dispense electricity from the vehicles.
But, but fundamentally, what we do is we try to bring together these huge massive silos of both data and frankly industries, right? You've got a multi-trillion dollar industry in electricity. And you've got a multi-trillion dollar industry and automotive world. And each of these huge industries is about a century old and started about the same time and is each going through its own sort of transformation.
We talk about the energy transition. The same thing is happening in the automotive world, right, with electrification. And as these two S-curves take off, the renewables on the one side of the electricity sector and the electrification on the other side, the interesting thing that happens and really the genesis of the idea behind WeaveGrid and even the name is that these two sectors are converging, right?
Electrification is actually bringing these two sectors together. But that's not how they were designed. The transportation sector, you never thought about when I put out a car on the streets, the car has to now think about where it charges, how it charges, what happens, and what impact that has on the electric grid. And the electric grid for the century-ish that it's been around was never designed with transportation as a use case though there are some fantastic pictures of Henry Ford and Thomas Edison hanging out and like talking about electric vehicles.
So, aside from that though, there really hasn't ever been thoughtful planning and then integration for transportation. So, our software sits in that nexus in that middle between these two sectors with, of course, a huge focus on the people that bind them together which are drivers and customers of electricity.
And so, we sell our software to utilities and help them both understand predict and then manage the impacts of electrification because they are the sort of the stakeholders who manage the electric grid at the end of the day and ensure that all of us get access to clean, reliable, cheap electricity.
And so, in a world where transportation is dependent on clean, reliable, cheap electricity, you need to make sure that the sort of stakeholder that manages that, that grid is also capable of doing that. That's what we do.
Jason Jacobs: And what was it that opened your eyes to this problem or said another way? What's the origin story for the company?
Apoorv Bhargava: How far back you wanna go?
Jason Jacobs: You've got the mic so, wherever you wanna take us.
Apoorv Bhargava: Oh, man. All right. Let's do this. Let's start with the very, very like how did the company start at the ground level maybe. But I will say like this company for both me and my co-founder, John, [laughs] has been a... It's funny it's been a sort of a culmination. And I say culmination as if it's the last thing we're gonna do in our lives. But it's definitely been a... Uh, it feels like a culmination of all of our life experiences in one place.
And I'm sure every startup is for every founder. But this definitely feels like that. So, I was at Stanford getting my MBA and my MS in energy and resources and my co-founder, John, was getting his PhD in what's known as management, science, and engineering. And the two of us had sort of, I think, come at this, this problem or this question of what happens with electrification.
Well, taking a step back, right, like... And I'll, I'll take many, many, many, many steps back when you tell me to. But I have always been interested in climate energy, all of those things. This has been my lifelong passion. And I truly mean life-long like back as I was as a teenager. But also like when I was in grad school, I was coming to the end of grad school. And I was just asking myself like in this climate stack in the GHG pie, if you like pie charts, I he- tend to hate pie charts.
But in the bar chart, pie chart, whatever [laughs] you wanna call it, where on the emission stack do I wanna play my next role? And as I was looking at it and particularly right now, I, I was focusing maybe on the US emissions stack, you know, 32%, the leading cause of emissions in the US is transportation and at least according to US EPA.
And so, my question was like, "What can we do to tackle those emissions." And I think it was so obvious in 2015, '16 that electrification was one of those ways, right? It, it was such an obvious way. And by the way, I say this to everyone. But, like, I have no like strong beliefs around any one technology working or not working or this, that. I just I'm looking for the most scalable solution to decarbonize as quickly as possible. That's all I care about.
And so, with that in mind, as I looked at electrification as I looked at the costs and benefits and as I understood how that would manifest, a big question started coming to my head which was like, "Hold on. Like I'm all for electrification, but electrification of all the things we can electrify." But at the end of the day, like, the grid just was never designed to deal with it. Now, when I say the grid, I think for a lot of people the grid means the power plants that they're familiar with, the pictures, they see, of wind and solar or, or the bad pictures of coal and whatever, or they think about high transmission line, you know, high voltage transmission lines.
The grid's a lot more complicated than that. I mean there are three components of the grid as we think about, that there's generation transmission distribution. Often times especially on energy Twitter, we have a tendency which I'm unfortunately a very big part of or try to be a big part of, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing, but, you know, we often talk about generation transmission. We forget about the last piece which is distribution.
And so, when you holistically look at the grid, my question was just how will the grid, every single piece of it, deal with electrification and where will the impacts be felt most and how do we ensure that those impacts are not damaging in any way such that it slows down electrification because it is one of the most important levers we have to de-carbonizing transportation and hence decarbonizing our economy. John, my co-founder, had come at the same question but from the transportation side.
He had worked at Tesla, in fact, I think had worked for JB Straubel, the co-founder and CTO of Tesla and in fact had TA'ed for JB when JB was teaching at Stanford. And before that, I also spent some time briefly at Nissan. And actually funnily enough, John and I think may have even briefly both spent time in DC. So, we both had, like, I think a, a sort of a systems-based approach to looking at this problem. And so, him and I... He was coming up from the transportation side, had always been interested in that sector and how we'd reduce our dependency on things like oil and so forth.
And so, when the two of us met, it was such an interesting, oh, you understand it from that perspective. You understand it from that perspective. And as we started talking more, we started coffee dating going on the founder dating journey that we... that [laughs] you have to do in the early days, we realized that I think we just like really complemented each other's perspectives. And yeah. So, that was the origin story.
And then, I guess one other thing is for every, every founder that I talk to nowadays, I feel like I recommend this whether I'm advising them or I've invested in some of their companies and stuff. I always say like, "Spend as much time as you feel like you need doing your product market fit analysis." And like for us, we spent basically almost a year just going out there and talking to utilities, automakers, drivers. You pick it. Like we just spent so long trying to figure out whether or not this was a real thing. And if somebody would fundamentally pay and if the problem was real and at the end of the year, we decided it was so started a company.
Jason Jacobs: And you talk about how the electrification of transportation and then the, the rise of, of renewables in the power sector how they meet and how neither one was built to play nice together, I get that conceptually. But within that, what specific problem or problems did you observe? And how did you think about which pieces of it and how much of it to bite off when you were looking at where to start?
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah. I mean, you know, it's a huge problem space. And there's so many different parts of it. And not everything that we, we talk about in, you know, the popular media or the policy world or different parts is necessarily where the immediate problems are being faced or where the long-term problems will be faced, you know.
I mean as we thought about it, they're sort of the first sort of questions that I think a lot of people ask which are, look, you know, are there enough batteries. Is the cost of batteries low enough? Are we gonna have enough charging stations? Like that's the kind of thing that I think the first order questions that are really important or fundamentally are not the issues that John and I were capable of handling or, or answering.
I mean I'm a chemical engineer by training. And I'm happy to go to my background. [laughs] So, I probably could have built batteries if I, [laughs] if I had stuck to that pathway once upon a time. But I decided to go down the evil route of becoming an MBA.
So, [laughs] I think for us, it was sort of... It was taking the fact that both of us had a training in engineering, economics, policy, business, both of us did. And I think both of us were just kind of like if you wanna take a fuller look at the whole system and at the two systems integrating, what are not the first order but the second-order problems?
You know, we both live in the Bay Area. So, the joke out here in San Francisco is like the people who made money during the Gold Rush were not the people mining for gold but the people making the shovels. And so, we kind of were asking ourselves, "What's the shovel problem that we need to resolve in this space not just from a money perspective, but frankly from a bottleneck perspective, right?"
Like, what are we gonna run into once we do figure out those battery supply chains? What are we gonna run into once the charging infrastructure is set up? Is it really that easy? And the answer was no, it isn't. It really is not that easy. And so, where we decided to start was really where the EV sector is today which is mostly focused on residential charging.
And, you know, with that, we said how do we look at the resi EV space where 80% of charging happens today, it may decrease over time. But ultimately, like, that's where the bulk of the charging is and how do we think about that as a valuable service to the electric grid whilst the electric grid is in its own huge once in a century transformation?
So, let's give you an example of that. Currently, WeaveGrid is working with one of our clients, Xcel Energy, in the Midwest where during the middle of the nigh, there's too much wind energy in Colorado. So, instead of throwing away that wind energy, curtailing as it's known, Xcel Energy sends us a signal. And we automate the charging of a bunch of drivers in Xcel Energy where we will ensure that their car is fully filled up with as much of that energy that would otherwise be curtailed.
So, that's a moment where system one, the electric sector, is going through its own transition hasn't really had to deal with curtailment of energy as much. But then, system two is also going through its own transition, more and more people going electric. There's these giant batteries on wheels sitting around. And here's this opportunity to aggregate them through data, aggregate them through intelligence and optimization, and leverage them as an actual resource for that electric sector.
And that's the kind of thing that we've been able to do and be able to do at scale. And, and frankly do it really fast pace that I think allows us to say that 60% of emissions, the 32% in, in transportation and 29% of electricity lie within the scope that we wanna go after as a company and as a primary reason why I think people join this company. It's, it's really about looking at the [laughs] 60% of the pie at least within the US and saying, "How do we as a company accelerate that coming down to zero?"
Jason Jacobs: So, taking that example for a moment, so your customer is the utility. And in terms of the, the end customers, the EV owners, do they need to do anything to opt in to this service or is it, is it all under the hood?
Apoorv Bhargava: It's all under the hood. But they always have to opt in, you know. This is not something where we, we would wanna default and-
Jason Jacobs: And what is the, the message and the value propositions to them of why to opt in? And is there any money changing hands in that opt-in process?
Apoorv Bhargava: Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. So, I think if I remember the details correctly, Xcel Energy is providing their customers $100 off upfront for signing up for this program. They, of course, get access to cheaper charging because, remember, that energy is gonna be dumped. So, it's practically free. And I think there's a recurring incentive they get.
And aside from that, they get a really nice experience that they get to... they get to see through both their utility and their automaker portals where they really get to understand more about their charging. They get to see what better charging behavior looks like. And importantly, their charging is automated, you know. As an, as an EV driver yourself, I think, or I think you're trying to go electric, if i remember correctly, but-
Jason Jacobs: I'm now six months in. Six months in. So, I'm-
Apoorv Bhargava: There we go.
Jason Jacobs: ... maybe in your target market. I don't know if Massachusetts [crosstalk 00:19:59].
Apoorv Bhargava: Maybe. Maybe. So, you know, when you go home, you fundamentally just wanna plug in and set and forget. Like I used to have this like terrible problem when I would go home and plug in my car. [laughs] And then, I would like plug in my car and then… or I would not remember to plug in my car. So, I'd just go home. And I'd like have groceries in my hand or something. And I'd like run through the door and forget to plug in my car. And then, the next day I'd wake up. And I'd say, "Oh, crap. I didn't plug in."
So, it's the same experience you have, your… their phone [laughs] instead of your car which is a lot more, a lot more problematic. And, and I think that's one of the big challenges, right, with electrification… Well, not big challenges. But, like, it's one of the big questions with electrification which is unlike any other kind of... There's this wonky term that energy people love to use, distributed energy resources, one of my like least favorite terms honestly.
But EVs are not first and foremost an energy resource. They are first and foremost a mobility resource. You didn't buy an EV because you wanted to go save $10 on some like cool application, or you wanted to let your car be used as a grid resource. You bought it because you wanted to drive the cleaner, better car. And like that is one of the best things about EVs is it's better and increasingly cheaper. And it's cleaner, of course, right?
So, there's every aspect of it is becoming better. And I think when you buy that mobility resource, the fact that there is value to the grid or conversely if not handled well, cost to the grid is something that is a... it's sort of a byproduct of that mobility decision. And that's a lot of how we think about it which is like fundamentally mobility and energy are becoming one thing. You have to think about them in an integrated planning framework versus, you know, automakers and, you know, city planners making one set of decisions and electric planners making another set of decisions. Like how do you bring those two sets of decisions together? That's really hard. And so, that's where we, we come in.
Jason Jacobs: And so, just to go back to that first example, so, fr- from the, the end customer standpoint, they get savings if they opt in. So, there's incentives from the utilities. So, the utility essentially pays them to opt in. And, at the same time, presumably, the utility is paying you. And I would imagine this was that a pure SaaS model or are there other components for that business model?
Apoorv Bhargava: [crosstalk 00:22:08]
Jason Jacobs: Pure stats. Okay. So, SaaS, on the one hand, they're paying you. And then, they're paying the end customer. And then, that's cash going out in two directions for them. So, where does the ROI come in? And what form?
Apoorv Bhargava: There's a ton of savings, Jason. Like ultimately, this is what it comes back to is that the utility is… the utility, the grid, every part of that equation is saving so much money. But also, electrification is benefiting them, right? So, if you think about electrification, it is load growth for electric utilities. It's one of the big reasons that they're so excited about electrification.
Jason Jacobs: So, essentially, it increases their inventory because if they would otherwise curtail it, it means that they wo- don't get paid for it. So, even if they're getting paid a little bit, it's more than zero. And so, it's incremental revenue. Is that, is that right?
Apoorv Bhargava: There's two aspects to that. So, in that specific example, in that specific use case, that's right. I mean there's increased revenue reduced. I like the term inventory. But also, there's other parts of the grid and other ways that you can optimize for the grid. And that's a lot of where our secret sauce is. It really is about thinking more efficiently about your capital uti- utilization and your asset utilization.
And at the same time, also thinking about this as a revenue adder. Ultimately, more electrification equals more electrons being sold. There is an actual benefit to utilities from load growth. And if you can actually manage that charging much more intelligently for every different piece of the grid and every different, you know, kind of problem that a utility may face with electrification, then, there's actually a ton more cost efficiencies that come out.
And so, that ROI is actually really, really powerful. It's really obvious honestly. And it's not obvious if you haven't spent time working with utilities which is probably where my background is really helpful. But, yeah. I mean it's... It pencils really nicely. [laughs] Let's just put it that way.
Jason Jacobs: Feel free to not disclose anything you don't wanna disclose. But just order of magnitude, how many customers are you serving today?
Apoorv Bhargava: We're working with some of the largest utilities around the country. So, we're working with, I mean, some of the ones that we've disclosed. And there's, there's more coming down the pike. But we're working with the largest utility in the country which is Exelon, working with a couple of the utilities within their family. We're working with Xcel Energy working with a couple of utilities here on the West Coast. So, order of magnitude [inaudible 00:24:20], we're covering a lot of, a lot of EV drivers around the country, let's put it that way. And so, it's been really exciting.
Jason Jacobs: And are these at pilot scale or like what type of penetration within these utilities? And again, don't, don't share anything you don't wanna share. I'm just trying to get a ballpark. And then I have a series of other questions to follow up from there.
Apoorv Bhargava: You know, it's interesting. Like with the kinds of products that we've built out and continue to build out, I think a lot of the work we've really been focused on is trying to deliver immediate value to customers. So, the Xcel Energy project that I described was a pilot. And then, you know, there's, there's a lot more work that utilities realize very quickly once they start to see the value of the insights, the data, the management, all of that and say, "Hey, like maybe, there's more things we can do together."
To give you an example with our project with Exelon, so, one of our first customers, Baltimore Gas and Electric, we started with them with doing a, I wanna say, a pilot more of a program. So, there's a… there's a utility differential there where programs mean something slightly different from pilot. But the point is we started by programmatically enrolling drivers and getting them onto both the time of use rate and also giving them incentives and rebates for their EV charging. And it was so effective that together with BG&E and one of their sister utilities. We actually went in and got a grant from the Department of Energy to prove out a lot more of actually our complex optimization which is around how do you manage these electric vehicles particularly in a much higher penetration scenario where we're talking about 10, 15% EV penetration where the stress on the grid actually becomes kind of exponentially higher.
And there's a lot more kind of problems you need to resolve. And so, that was an example of where we sort of were landing and expanding because what I was kind of building towards earlier was that we start with immediate value, immediate ROI. But we are also building a system and a solution that is trying to future proof utilities, their customers, auto makers, everyone from the long term which is really around how does the system evolve and change and need to handle a higher and higher penetration of EVs.
And so, that's where, for example, the BG work eventually translated into a much broader scoped project with the DOE. And we've got some more interesting and exciting areas that we're gonna be announcing there soon. So, yeah. I mean we've, we've been working frankly on a lot larger projects than, than what I would classify as a pilot which is what's really exciting.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And I, I don't know how to ask this question succinctly. But I'll just kind of dump out some context so you can get an idea of what I'm trying to get at. But basically, I'm not much of an enterprise software person. But if I was, I feel like I would look for opportunities not just to serve one customer, but to do it more in a cookie cutter way where the less customization and the more set economies of scale, if you will, then the better.
Now, with utilities from what I understand and you're way closer to this than I am, but each region and each utility or ecosystem of players is vastly different from each other. And there's regulated. And there's deregulated. And there's... It seems like it would be very difficult to get those economies of scale. And so, my question is are these more like one-off engagements given that dynamic or is it consistent across? And to the extent that it's consistent, who are you selling to? And, and what do you say that syncs the hooks and gets them to sit up in their chair and be interested in finding ways to work together?
Apoorv Bhargava: [laughs] I think if I told you all that, then, I probably wouldn't have a business anymore. But honestly, [laughs] I mean I think that's part of it. Like I think there's this huge belief sometimes within the, the burgeoning climate tech space that like everything is driven by technology.
I think a lot of it is driven by go-to market. A lot of this company was driven by our approach to go-to market. And the incredible amount of deliverance that John and I did in the early days to figuring out who the buyer is, why they would buy it, you know, what their budgets were, how do you build a consistent and scalable product, not a custom, you know, [laughs] what is it a, a custom consulting solution for every, every customer. And how do you ensure that you're actually providing value to all the stakeholders in the systems transformation?
So, like, do I think that there are cheaper, quicker, easier ways of doing some of the things that we're trying to do? Yeah, there are. And I've seen, I've seen other approaches to, to charging management, to tackling the problems of EVs in the grid. I think my view is just that like the holistic view requires you to think about every stakeholder very thoughtfully. And we've tried to do that. And we've tried to build that into our solution.
And just to go specifically to your question, I mean, yeah. We're building things that are productized. We have hired people. We're top of the line from enterprise consumer, whatever company you wanna think about, right, who are coming to our team and are actually building those systems in such a way such that we can stamp them out in a very consistent fashion whilst, of course, keeping the flavor required for each of our customers for their specific use cases.
But at the end of the day, like, there's a handful of use cases. And we know what they are. We are discovering some of them. We are inventing some of them. And that's how we make sure that that's something that our customers wanna use.
So, to your point, it is an enterprise solution. It is something that we can stamp out. It is something we're trying to do as cost efficiently as well as possible. That's why people invested in us. That's why they like us.
Jason Jacobs: And you, you mentioned land and expand. How do you balance the tension between doing a narrow set of things best in class versus doing more things over time? And how do you weigh which direction to expand given how... given that first thing we just talked about how the, the landscape at least in the, in the US utilities is so fragmented?
Apoorv Bhargava: I actually think the US utilities are a lot [laughs] more simple to figure out than most people think. As somebody who's lived kind of all over the world, the US utility system is actually... It's straightforward if you know how to look at it. I think the problem is most people who enter it don't. [laughs]
And so, perhaps this is where my veteran status perhaps shows up where I'm like, "Yeah, I get it." Like it... I understand where they're coming from. I understand how to navigate that space. Sorry. So, to answer your specific question though of land and expand, I think we are very focused. We're very focused because we've already taken a very focused view that like the most important transformation on the electric grid as it relates to the customer is the electric vehicle.
And I think that, that is something where we have stayed focused and true. I was looking at a sketch that I did back in 2018 like a little sketch and like very little has really changed in our vision. And I think that's good. We've taken a lot of feedback to heart. We've, of course, continued to evolve our product and evolve what we needed to do. But, but, but ultimately, the vision has stayed very consistent.
Electrification is gonna be the most powerful transformation on the grid aside from the grid going towards renewables and zero carbon energy. And I think like that consistency is what we bring. And we don't try to like bounce around and do a bi- billion different things.
Jason Jacobs: And when you go in, are you typically unseating another solution that was in place that is not getting the job done or is this a new category of spent?
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah. It's a good question. I think it really depends on utility to utility. So, taking a big step back and this is probably where maybe some of my background is more helpful. But there are legacy solutions and approaches to broader what's known as demand site management in the utility space.
And again, electric vehicles are just so different. They're not a thermostat. They're not a battery… They're just not the same. Honestly, if your thermostat stops working, you get cold. You can get very hot. You can have some very big issues. But like your ability to take your kids to school or go to work or go to the grocery store is not impinged by your thermostat not working.
I think that is a huge differentiator, right? Electric vehicles really are a radically different device, a radically different kind of asset. And so, existing solutions that, that do really good work when it comes to kind of controlling load around things like thermostats and so forth, they're solving for different problems. And they're also historically looking at frankly a very small part of the overall household load.
EVs are just radically, radically different and, and frankly, much more sort of what I call white space within a utility. And so, generally, you know, we're going in. And we're kind of helping inform where the future is headed. And I think we have a very specific perspective on what that future looks like as these two systems come together. And that's, that's one of the reasons I think we... we're working with some of the clients that we're working with.
Jason Jacobs: And what would the experience look like either for the utility or for the EV owner without WeaveGrid? And then, what does it look like with WeaveGrid? I, I guess what I'm asking is how much pain is there before you show up? And then which of that pain is specifically getting alleviated?
And for context, I mean I know very little about what's happening under the hood with my utility. But I've, I've had EV six months. I'm not... I don't believe I've opted into any WeaveGrid style solution. And when I get home, I plug it in. And then, the next morning if I use it, I unplug it. And I go. And I don't really think about it that much. So, how would my experience be different if WeaveGrid was there?
Apoorv Bhargava: Can I get a slightly different track here which is like this is the exact same question as like how does individual action compare to a systems problem? Like, ultimately, you as an individual actor can do all the right things that you believe are the right things. And yet, at the same time, it may not actually tackle the system's problem.
And that is the same challenge that climate has as we have with this kind of a problem. When you really think about the impact of taking 280 million light duty vehicles that are currently on the road and have no plug and transforming those in the next 10 to 15 years which is where we need to go to an all-electric implication, if every one of those vehicles or even 50% of them charges at home, anywhere between five to 20 kilowatts, just for context, your average American home peaks at about five kilowatts, right, without an EV.
That's the level of system's impact that we're talking about. And, yes, an individual may not need to worry about it when you buy it for your first EV. But as a utility, if you've got, let's say, 20 million customers in your territory and if all of them start buying EVs or all of them by two EVs because the average American home has two cars, now suddenly, you're talking about, you know, a doubling or tripling of load in various pockets.
And again remember, we never designed the system to handle all of that charging. So, that's the kind of problem where the pain shows up very quickly as this exponential curve takes off. And I think if we've learned one thing from COVID, it's the fact that we haven't been very good at planning exponentially for exponential growth and that these kind of things can frankly trip us up if we're not careful and not thinking that way.
Jason Jacobs: That makes sense. So, just to kind of parrot that back to you to make sure that I understand it, what I'm hearing is that it isn't necessarily that the, the EV owner is in pain and you're coming in with a life preserver and, and saving the day. It said, "No, the EV owner is more or less probably oblivious to this." But directionally, the EV owner is going to experience future pain that they don't know about yet if this is left unaddressed because the grid will strain and become less reliable over time. So, the, the utility that needs to hold it together given the increasing pressure that electrification is going to put on the grid and in order to hold it together that's worth a lot to them so they can afford to give some incentives to get people to act that aren't necessarily huge incentives. But it isn't necessarily a big ask.And, and if you can get, you know, a meaningful percentage of people to do it, it can have a big impact at the systems level so everybody wins.
Apoorv Bhargava: That's right. And I wanna be clear, not just everybody wins who is a participant. But everybody wins. I think one of the pieces that in particular like we often ignore it, I think, when we sometimes talk about climate solutions that are very much individual actor driven or is that what happens to those people who don't, who don't have that affordability, who don't have the ability to buy solar panels or buy an electric vehicle and do all of that.
There's a huge equity component that we have to think about which is, ultimately, how do we transform this, this system in a way that everybody can benefit? And the beautiful thing about electrification and actually a lot of like our work at WeaveGrid is that the value we create actually is able to go back towards the pockets of human people who don't tried EV, right, because their rates also remain low. Their rates may even go down with electrification just as much as the benefit accrues to the individual EV owner.
So, I think that's one of the things that like is often lost in a lot of our conversations because, frankly, we all need to like recognize the grid is actually an amazing socialized benefit. And it was if you kind of like go back through the history of the electric grid and so forth, it really was one of the very few things that we decided as a society we're going to allow everybody, rich, poor, you know, white, black, no matter what, have access.
Now, there are issues even there in the equity and access to the electric grid. But frankly, like, it's an amazing, amazing invention. And as electrification takes off, we need to make sure that like everyone has access to clean, reliable, cheap power, right? And that's, that's one of the things that electrification can actually help with.
Jason Jacobs: So, we've been talking about the role that software and algorithms, and WeaveGrid specifically packaging those things plays. And, and that makes good sense to me that by helping more intelligently allocate the energy that is available and more intelligently finding the vehicles that are need of charging that the grid has access to, then, it can mean cleaner choices and less curtailment. Got it.
Putting WeaveGrid aside, what are the other bottlenecks that are, like… Where, where are the big knots or pain points or exposure points of the grid as electrification continues as the billion plus people in the world that don't have access to basic electricity come online? Like, what are the other areas that you hope that others come along so that you can all help the grid be more resilient together? Like, what else do you need that's outside of the scope of, of WeaveGrid's purview that is a, you know, a key partner in crime for this effort? And, and that could be a company or it could just be solution areas that are either being addressed or that aren't that need to be.
Apoorv Bhargava: And this is why I'm such good friends with Tim. We often joke he supplies, I do- I manage the demand. [laughs] Like, you know, it's like I think the other big area obviously is, is around the actual... the supply side, right? We have to decarbonize that. We have to move as quickly as possible to a zero carbon electricity world. If that doesn't happen, then, it's very difficult to, to imagine the use cases, right, whether it's electric vehicles or whatever else, you know, helping us get to a sort of a net zero kind of future.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative] because you can, you can allocate and say, "Okay. Whatever excess clean, we can use." But if there's no excess to allocate, then, it doesn't matter how accurate, yeah, you know, how well your software is doing its job, right?
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah. And again, the excess generation part is just one piece of our software. There's many other things that we need to solve for including the grid's capability. But at the same time, like the supply still needs to be... We need to push the supply down to zero emissions as much as possible. And like whether that's a combination of renewables, solar wind, of course, geothermal, nuclear, whatever. Like we need to get it down to that zero, you know, the zero grams per kilowatt hour as quickly as you can. So, I think to me, that's the most important transformation for the grid.
Jason Jacobs: I'm surprised that I'm not hearing storage mentioned in this bucket of things.
Apoorv Bhargava: So, we haven't actually talked about sort of My Climate Journey here. And I will be honest. Lfike we need to be careful how we use the word storage. I think there are so many different kinds of storage. That's why I don't like to just like throw the word storage out there because I think there's amazing work being done on long duration storage. There's also amazing work that has truly been deployed and will continue being deployed on short duration storage.
I think EVs are a form of storage. Like there are so many different things that fall within that bucket. So, I absolutely agree. It was probably a slip on my part to not mention the word storage. But that's mostly because I sort of don't think of storage as like a, a monochromatic kind of thing. I think of it as like many different forms, you know, from, from amazing work being done at like literally form energy or Antora or some of the long-duration folks like them to just frankly the phenomenal work that people are doing with lithium-ion 4-hour battery storage. And I've worked on storage as well previously. And I think it's, it's super important. But every different kind of storage is gonna have its own value to the system.
Jason Jacobs: Apoorv, where does government fit in? Where does policy fit in? How much do you think about and rely on that world and how much do you resource to it if at all?
Apoorv Bhargava: I think if you are an entrepreneur in this space and you're not thinking actively about policy, that is a mistake. So, from the earliest of days, we at WeaveGrid, both-
Jason Jacobs: And how do you define this space by the way just for clarity?
Apoorv Bhargava: How do you define this space? [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: Oh, I mean it, it depends because you could be talking about power. You, you could be talking about electrification. You could be talking about climate tech in general which touches food egg. I mean-
Apoorv Bhargava: I'm talking about [crosstalk 00:42:10] Yeah. I'm talking about-
Jason Jacobs: ... industrial processes.
Apoorv Bhargava: [crosstalk 00:42:13]
Jason Jacobs: Yeah. Okay.
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah. Agreed. I'm, I'm talking about [crosstalk 00:42:15].
Jason Jacobs: So, so if you're focused on climate holistically, you need to care about policy.
Apoorv Bhargava: I think so. It's one of the most important things you can be thinking about. I was texting one... another one of your guests, former guests, from the show yesterday who works much more in the carbon removal space yesterday. And he was like, "Hey, like who are some of the policy makers we need to be talking to?"
And I was like, "Hey, about this person, this person, this person." You cannot in this space, in the climate space, not think about policy because fundamentally and I think you more than anybody has done an exceptional job of trying to define what the word climate tech means.
I mean climate and the technologies that go into trying to decarbonize the economy is [laughs] about trying to decarbonize the whole economy. How are we ever gonna decarbonize the whole economy if we're not actively thinking about policy because policy touches the whole economy? In my view and I think I, I talked about this sort of trifecta parts of the system is that business and finance technology and policy have to fit together.
And if you can find those three pieces coming together, well, then your obligation as a founder is to make sure that the fourth piece which is bringing together amazing people also happens. And I think one of the things that we've done well at WeaveGrid is both resourcing each of those three pieces. We have amazing technologists. We have a phenomenal business development and sales team. But we also have an amazing policy team that goes out there and actually talks to regulators understands their needs, understands, you know, what priorities they're solving for, informs and educates them on how the market is evolving.
And then, you know, you have to bring that all together by hiring the best people in each of those spaces and build a culture that can support those very different ways of talking and, and approaching the world. So, that's how I think about it a lot. What role does policy play? There's a world where policy can be very supportive. And I'm all for policy being supportive towards the deployment and the innovation of these technologies and businesses.
But then, there's also a world where policy can be detrimental. And so, I think the more that we can [laughs] ask policymakers to really focus on giving us that… the playing field and saying, all right, these are the incentives, approaches, all of those things that allow for again the innovation and deployment of these climate-focused technologies and companies, I think that... that's what I want the most.
I don't need over-prescriptivism. I don't need any of that? I think we're, we're doing phenomenally. And we will continue doing phenomenally. And I'm so excited about some of the policies that are coming out of DC right now but also by a lot of the local policies that we're seeing taken off. So-
Jason Jacobs: Has WeaveGrid been 100% US-focused to date?
Apoorv Bhargava: Yeah. We're 100% US-focused. We're US-focused. We know our market here very well. We're more focused on the US.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And do you anticipate that, that will be the case for as far as the eye can see, or, or do you ultimately plan to be more global?
Apoorv Bhargava: Climate's a global problem. We're all at this company because we think this is one of the most important things we can do for climate. So, yeah. I mean we'll... ultimately, we'll find ways to go international. But for now, we're focused on the US.
Jason Jacobs: Do you think that if you try to do what you're doing in different areas of the world, would it be a vastly different sport or, I guess, how much of how you've been operating would translate?
Apoorv Bhargava: The physics problem is the same everywhere in the world, right? Like that's not the problem. That's not gonna be an issue in that sense a person from one of the very large European countries is German. I think it was a German energy ministry or somebody, if I'm not mistaken, come by our office a few months ago being like, "Hey, I think we're gonna face the same issue."
So, I think the physics problem is the same. The issue is how do you go to market? You know, how do you actually like deploy your solution in various markets? What are the rules and regulations that enable you to deploy your solution? Back to your earlier question, does it remain a product if you go out there? Does it actually scale in the same way?
And I think those are very different considerations as you try to go around the world. So, I think for us, like, we're more focused right now in the US. But we've, we've definitely been exploring international opportunities. But I just think we wanna make sure that it's something that, that allows the company to still scale in the same way.
Jason Jacobs: So, for someone that comes from a software, uh, a traditional software background without experience in climate tech who is growing increasingly more concerned about the problem and looking to reorient their professional pursuits around doing something directly impactful for climate, what advice do you have for those people other than, of course, to work at WeaveGrid?
Apoorv Bhargava: It's funny. I feel like I do two to three of those a week whether or not they work at WeaveGrid. [laughs] It just so happens a lot of them end up wanting to… I mean I think my advice is this. You know this. A lot of other people in the climate tech world know this. But climate can be broken out into a whole array of different sectors, kinds of industries, whatever else and kinds of solutions and so on.
And we need all of them, I mean as many of the... of those solutions as possible. For somebody coming out of the software world, though, I often hear a sort of a hesitation which is like, "I'm not a chemical engineer. I'm not a physicist. I'm not a material scientist. I'm not a mechanical engineer. Are my skills valuable?" And I, I mean aside from trying to be a mecca for that group of people out here at WeaveGrid, I really do try to think about, well, where are the places that you can take your skills and talents to affect systems because one of the most amazing things about software is that it scales so quickly and at such low costs.
And it can truly have a huge dent, make a huge dent on any kind of system. I mean I remember. So I used to work at a company called Opower which was one of the more successful software companies in the sort of first era of Cleantech. And I just remember thinking about the impact that a company like Opower had on emissions, on energy savings, and through, through software.
Like fundamentally, we were able to move people's behavior not a huge percentage, but this meaningful percentage and do a systems transformation and a systems level meaningful dent as it were. I think like as a software person, like, whether you're in design, you're in engineering, you're in machine learning, it doesn't matter. You're… I think your... those skills are all valuable in the climate fight.
What you just have to find are the companies that are actually affecting that system's change because that's where your talent will have the highest ROI on making a dent, I think, on emissions. And I think there are a lot of companies that are increasingly starting to use software in this space. But I'm not yet convinced that they will meaningfully move in emissions. And that's, I think, where my spicy takes start to come in where I'm like, "Yeah, it's good." But ultimately, like, it's good that you're using software. But is it actually moving the needle on emissions or actually reducing bottlenecks to those emissions falling? So, just be cautious.
Jason Jacobs: And given that a bunch of traditional software VCs, have or, or have historically had some allergy to selling to utilities, maybe address them for a moment what message do you want them to hear or entrepreneurs, for example, that identify problems in the utility world but are hesitant to pursue them with software given the, the negative stories or perception with selling to that market?
Apoorv Bhargava: You know, it's funny you say that, Jason. So, like I go back to before climate became such a hot venture-backable topic in 2018 when I was exploring this, this concept and then 2019, I think the software VCs were the ones most open to understanding why this was a problem, right?
Like everybody sort of had a eyebrows raised are you sure about utilities? But, like, every sector today buys software. It doesn't matter, right? We have vertical staffs for every sector. You look at amazing companies like Viva in the biotech space. Like how many people would have thought that like that was a sector that would have adopted software?
So, the reality is there is software everywhere. It's not a question of can you build software for a sector? It's a question of can you get that sector to adopt your software? And I think that's where it goes back to, and I hate to kind of keep banging the drone at this point, it's like what is your go to market? And I think for a lot of people, the go-to market is, is not clear because they're, they're sort of maybe a little too tunnel-visioned on the actual technology.
So, broaden your horizons. Think about like how you're selling and distributing your product in the same way as what product you're actually building. And, importantly, is it a product? You know, is it a good product if the customer doesn't want it, right
Like I think one pushback I've had for a lot of the climate founders that I advise is that they'll say, "This is what the world needs." And I'm like, "I know that's what the world needs." But does the person who's gonna buy your thing need it, right, because if they don't need it, then, I don't know what you're trying to do.
Maybe, they're the wrong buyer. Maybe, there's somebody else who needs it. So, I just think that there's act... Like, one of the most amazing things I've learned from software entrepreneurs like yourself or just generally really hu- good entrepreneurs is actually being brutally honest about saying do I have product market fit or not? And I think that's something that like this sort of tech world in general has just a whole playbook around that I love that I think we could learn a lot from in the client space.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And similar to how you talked about fielding calls every week from operators looking to move in this direction from traditional software roles, I would imagine you're probably feeling similar from more general software investors looking to do more investing in climate tech. How do you feel about that increased interest? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? Does it give you pause? Are there things to watch out for? Are you excited about it? Like what's your general reaction? And, and what message do you have for traditional VCs looking to move in, in this direction? What do you want them to hear?
Apoorv Bhargava: So, just for context, like our Series A was led by an investor. It was led by [inaudible 00:52:03] who's an investor across, [laughs] I would say a lot more software and enterprise deals than maybe climate space. They've been incredible in the climate space too. And I've been really excited about a lot of the work they've done there. But they are classically known for their, their software and tech investing.
We also had Breakthrough Energy ventures who's like a very well-known climate investor, of course. And I think we were one of their earliest software investments. But, yeah. The point I would make to anybody who's entering the space is that I think lean on some of the, the diligence done about climate impact done by the sort of first wave of climate investors or Cleantech investors. They know more about maybe the details of the space.
But at the same time, still build your own theses in this space, right? Like assess the entrepreneurs for the, the quality that they're at. Assess the business a- for the quality that it's at. Look at the tab. I mean I think one of the most amazing things that [inaudible 00:52:57] did when they were doing diligence on us, they said, "Guys, like your time here is huge. Like we're talking about transforming two massive sectors, right?" And like, they love that about our business. And they loved the, the way we had grown the business to get there.
So, I think do your own analyses. Rely on experts for the parts that you don't know. And don't be hesitant to admit you don't know. But I'm super excited by the kind of investors who are coming into the space. I've had really incredible conversations with a lot of software-oriented investors in this space.
And there's a lot of excitement. And, and I think there's more hesitation on some of the hardware oriented climate solutions. But there's no reason to be. If you really believe that this is gonna be a, you know, once in a generation inflection and we're gonna have all these kind of huge transformations, then, your returns are still gonna be there. But I also say this because I, I worked at a venture fund that invested in a lot of hard tech. So, maybe I like… maybe, I like that problem.
Jason Jacobs: And who do you wanna hear from, Apoorv, of how can listeners be helpful to you?
Apoorv Bhargava: I'm excited to be on this platform to, to have the opportunity to talk to so many people. I mean honestly, I... one of my life goals is just to get more and more people into this space. I'm really, I'm really excited when people do reach out to me. I feel like unfortunately, I only have 24 hours in a day of which I try to sleep at least seven.
So, I'm losing the ability to talk to as many people as I try to. But, you know, if you're interested in the kind of problems that we're talking about, again, I think we're making a huge dent in this, in this problem. We're thinking about it in a really creative way. Of course, reach out to WeaveGrid. Reach out to me. Happy to kind of see if there are opportunities and roles. You know, if there are investors on the call, there's always great conversations that happen there.
I'm also happy to help. Even if we're not even talking about WeaveGrid, I'm always happy to help point people towards other exciting companies in the space. But just broadly, I think what I hope and why I like doing some of these things is that this kind of conversation inspires other people who maybe don't know as much about the sector having delved into a specific part of the sector to just kind of open their eyes and say, "Huh, what other problems are out there," because like I just think we need like hundreds of these entrepreneurs going out there and tackling every, every different part of this problem. So, yeah, that's what I really hope for.
Jason Jacobs: Apoorv, anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners?
Apoorv Bhargava: Oh, man. I feel like there was a whole like 18 years of my climate journey that I wanted to get into. But I also feel like we needed to focus on WeaveGrid. So, we'll do that next time. How's that? [laughs] Parting words for listeners, just keep at it y'all. Like this has been... It's such an amazing community. And I've been so, so excited to see the way that, that the MCJ community has grown. And I really hope that... I really hope that each of you is able to go through your own climate journey and also find places where you can go and make a serious dent because we need all hands on deck. So, really appreciate the time here.
Jason Jacobs: Amazing. Well, I'm glad we finally got this episode under our belts. And I can't wait to get it out there. So, thank you, Apoorv, and best of luck to you and the whole WeaveGrid team.
Apoorv Bhargava: Thanks, Jason. Looking forward to it.
Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. No, that is dot co not dot com. Someday, we'll get the dot com. But right, now dot co. You can also find me on Twitter at JJacobs22 where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The [inaudible 00:56:31] made me say that. Thank you.
