Energy transition investor and developer Modern Energy is seeding $30 million to help scale up a startup focused on utility-scale solar power for commercial and industrial (C&I) customers.
The money will help fund the launch and multi-year deployment of Industrial Sun, an Austin, Texas-based solar developer. Industrial Sun was founded by Dan Seif and Wade Gungoll, both of whom have decades of experience in the energy industry.
The renewed focus for Industrial Sun will on creating clean energy connections and cost savings for large-scale facilities.
“Modern’s experience developing, aggregating, and marketing assets across multiple technologies and regulatory regimes, along with their track record for building novel development platforms from inception to scale, was important to us in looking for a partner,” Seif said. “Modern understands the challenges associated with development. We are confident their world-class operations team will contribute to our success in this competitive environment.”
North Carolina-based Modern’s portfolio includes fully owned businesses delivering distributed energy solutions to customers and markets in the United States and Brazil.
Last year, Modern Energy and subsidiary Faro Energy raised $60 million to invest in solar projects in Brazil. Faro deployed about a third of that money into the construction of five new solar parks.
Kirk Bedell and Jazib Hasan led the transaction for Modern Energy. Before joining Modern, Bedell spent a decade building clean energy development businesses across the United States, including the distributed generation development business at Brookfield Asset Management and commercial strategy for General Electric’s distributed solar development business.
Before Modern, Hasan raised and invested capital in energy, infrastructure, renewables, and commodities — most recently at Citibank as its Head of Commodities Structured Finance and Credit Solutions. Prior to that, Hasan held similar executive roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Shell Energy North America and Deutsche Bank.
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(Rod Walton, senior editor for EnergyTech, is a 14-year veteran of covering the energy industry both as a newspaper and trade journalist. He can reached at [email protected]).
