Announcing Odyssey Energy Solutions' Series A

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At Equal, we believe that the clean energy transition will leapfrog the centralized grid in emerging markets. The IEA expects demand for power in emerging markets to grow 3x faster than in the US. Renewables will meet the majority of this demand, and should have 6-7x capacity in emerging markets compared to the US in the next 10 years. The WEF expects over $1T in investments to flow into emerging markets in the next 7 years to support this influx of new clean energy infrastructure projects. These projects have also already demonstrated the ability to achieve significantly higher IRRs than their OECD counterparts. Despite this rapidly growing demand, institutional investors have struggled to tap into these projects given lack of access to local developers and lack of data integrity of the underlying projects. Underwriting and investing in a solar project in New Jersey is different from doing the same in Nigeria. This is amplified by the struggles developers face in accessing capital outside their immediate localities, making it even more difficult to afford the IT infrastructure necessary to have robust data supporting these projects (which is ultimately necessary for them to access capital). This dynamic has inhibited the growth of the market for decades. Fortunately, it seems that Odyssey Energy Solutions has cracked the code.

Odyssey is a freemium business-in-a-box offering for clean energy developers in emerging markets to design, build, finance and operate their clean energy projects. Developers can use the platform to procure parts and materials at significantly discounted rates, while  commercial and concessional investors use it to diligence, fund and monitor projects. This is the first system to bring all the stakeholders of a project onto a single collaboration platform, vastly improving the quality of data and communication between partners. This doesn’t just make projects easier to execute, it also reinforces alignment across these stakeholders to drive greater accountability, dramatically lower transaction/underwriting costs and expedite project delivery timetables, ultimately resulting in significantly better project economics. Today, thousands of developers are using Odyssey as their core OS to develop billions of dollars of projects that may not have been possible otherwise.

We closed on Odyssey’s seed round roughly a year ago and went on to announce it a few months later, sharing our story of meeting Emily and partnering with her and the Odyssey team. We had long had a thesis of providing freemium software tools to developers and were blown away by the progress the team had achieved on such efficient resources (they had not yet raised outside capital). The company had a significant developer base, but our hope was that we could leverage the seed round to either 1) expand Odyssey’s investor base by launching a commercial capital offering OR 2) demonstrate the ability to monetize via a procurement marketplace for the developers. In nearly six months time, the company has proven both, while contributing capital to the balance sheet (yes, they were profitable in 2022). 

These two offerings represent the core of Odyssey’s platform. By expanding their investor base to include both private and concessional investors, Odyssey is able to increase access to emerging markets projects that were previously out of reach, but represent a tremendous opportunity for both material financial returns and climate impact. Odyssey’s procurement offering, Odyssey Procure, provides a streamlined procurement solution for developers. For the thousands of developers on Odyssey’s platform, procuring equipment like panels, inverters and batteries has historically been a hassle. Delivery times are lengthy and pricing is less-than-transparent, with standard parts and materials commanding significant premiums. Using Odyssey Procure grants developers on Odyssey’s network access to better pricing, equipment financing and faster delivery times, all within the same platform they use to design, finance and monitor their projects.

The Odyssey team has been off to the races from the very moment their seed capital hit the bank, going well above and beyond the plan of action. The company’s progress has been remarkable and is a testament to the all-star team that Emily and Piyush have built out, combining first-class business talent with industry leaders who know the ins and outs of the emerging markets energy transition and its key stakeholders. They’ve generated near-instantaneous demand for their commercial capital and procurement offerings, scaling not just dollars and developers on the platform, but net revenue in the bank. To put this into perspective, Odyssey launched these offerings at the end of 2022 and beginning of 2023 respectively and surged past their year-end 2023 goals in a matter of months. 

Emily often jokes that she was forced to bootstrap the business for so many years because when she started building the company in 2017, a “remote-first, cleantech business focused on emerging markets fintech” was completely unfundable. These were largely non-consensus themes (remote-first, clean tech, emerging markets), so she had to find a way to build a business that wasn’t reliant on venture capital. Needless to say, those themes have become far more mainstream and despite a challenging fundraising market, Odyssey was met with incredible interest for its Series A, ultimately raising a $14.5M round led by Union Square Ventures (you can read more in TechCrunch here). 

We’re honored to double down our investment into this round and couldn’t be more excited to work with this team to democratize clean energy development across the globe. This round will position Odyssey to further scale its financing and procurement offerings, while expanding its reach into new markets like Latin America and Asia. Odyssey is also hiring for a number of integral roles (check out their Careers page to learn more), so please consider joining the company if you want to be a part of this truly inspirational, ambitious and impactful journey.