Why we invested in Tyba

Massive changes are underway in how the world generates power. Solar and wind combined have jumped from 5% to 23% of global generation capacity in the past decade and more aggressive growth is expected. In December 2022, the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecast that 2,400 GW of renewable capacity will be added in the next five years, equivalent to China’s entire current capacity and enough to boost Solar PV ahead of coal, gas and hydropower as the largest source of global power capacity¹. As energy storage costs have dramatically declined, there is also significant growing interest in pairing storage with renewables. But to meet this demand, tough challenges must be addressed in designing, financing and operating hybrid storage and renewable projects to realize their potential value. That’s where Tyba comes in.

We were introduced to Tyba co-founders Michael Baker, Tyler Nisonoff and Tom Thunell by an executive at another Wireframe portfolio company. This impressive group epitomizes strong founder-market fit, having first-hand experience from Cypress Creek and Stem in the challenges of pairing storage with renewables. But what impressed us most about the Tyba team was their execution – after only raising a modest friends & family round, they assembled an outstanding software team to ship a compelling first product and generate early revenue from multiple customers.

Tyba is a modeling solution to plan, build and operate the renewable power infrastructure. The complexity of modeling generation projects increases substantially when pairing storage because project value depends significantly on how that flexible dispatch is managed. Today, it is time- and people-intensive to manually pull disparate data sets and create custom models in developing and financing these hybrid projects. Furthermore, once projects are built, it’s difficult to ensure that modeled performance translates into actual project operation.

Tyba’s initial product empowers renewable project developers by integrating a range of critical data sources, creating efficient workflows, and generating models that users trust. It is an essential resource for decision-making when financing and developing extremely capital-intensive storage + renewable projects. However, models are only a theoretical expression of value which project owners can’t realize unless the assets are operated and bid into wholesale energy markets in an optimal way. Tyba’s solution actually helps owners operate these assets and ensure that they realize the full potential of their projects. By serving developers and owners, Tyba brings efficiency to the development cycle, helps lower cost of capital, reduces risk and ensures that projects deliver maximum profitability.

We’re excited to lead this $2.25M financing in Tyba, alongside our friends at Powerhouse Ventures. And we’re thrilled to support Michael, Tyler and Tom on their mission to accelerate the broad deployment of storage and renewables on the path to a to a zero-carbon grid.  

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_{1 - IEA 2022; Renewables 2022, URL, https://www.iea.org/reports/renewables-2022/executive-summary}