BlocPower, a leading climate technology company focused on greening America’s buildings, announced a $150 million fundraising round today, led by VoLo Earth Ventures and including over $24 million in Series B corporate equity and $130 million in debt financing led by Goldman Sachs. The equity round was also joined by Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund, Credit Suisse, Builders Vision, New York State Ventures, Unreasonable Collective, Kimbal and Christiana Musk, Gaingels, Van Jones, Kapor Capital, My Climate Journey, Tale Venture Partners, and NBA superstar and entrepreneur Russell Westbrook. BlocPower has so far raised more than $250 million in capital to fund building decarbonization in low-income communities.
The funding will help BlocPower’s mission by expanding heat pump and building electrification programs across the United States. BlocPower will expand its highly differentiated, proprietary BlocMaps SaaS analytics platform, as well as its financing and administrative capabilities, as well as its Civilian Climate Corps green workforce initiative, which will focus on training and hiring at-risk individuals in vulnerable communities. Notably, the round comes at a time when Black startup founders in the US raised only 1% of VC funds last year—an estimated $2.25 billion out of $215.9 billion—nearly half of what they will raise in 2021 ($4.34 billion).
BlocPower has grown its revenue by 4,000% since its 2020 Series A, signing city-scale decarbonization projects in Ithaca, NY and Menlo Park, CA, as well as large-scale projects in Denver, CO, San Jose, CA, Buffalo, NY, Denver, CO, Atlanta, GA, and San Luis Obispo, CA. Hundreds of green energy upgrades were completed across the country, bringing the total number of completed projects to over 5,000 apartments, homes, houses of worship, and commercial buildings. BlocPower has also added several new American geographies to BlocMaps, which is now being used to develop and implement equitable, data-driven decarbonization strategies by municipalities and utilities in New York City, Ithaca, San Luis Obispo, Chicago, and other cities.
As part of Mayor Eric Adams’ Precision Employment Initiative, BlocPower’s Civilian Climate Corps was awarded a two-year, $108 million contract by New York City Mayor Eric Adams in 2022 to train 3,000 city residents for clean energy jobs and to help reduce gun violence. The new contract expanded upon a $37 million contract from 2021, which launched the NYC Civilian Climate Corps. BlocPower opened two new training facilities in Brooklyn and the Bronx to support that expansion, and raised $130 million in debt from Goldman Sachs. The program educates next-generation green economy workers from high-risk communities about the use of cutting-edge software to install clean energy hardware.
BlocPower is being recognized as an Emerging Leader by Vice President Kamala Harris in Washington, D.C. at the Vice President’s residence. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to ensure that 40% of climate infrastructure investments benefit “Justice 40” communities, which have a history of excessive pollution, disenfranchisement, and underinvestment.
BlocPower is the U.S. climate technology leader rapidly greening American cities. Since its founding in 2014, the company has completed energy projects in more than 5,000 households, commercial buildings and houses of worship. BlocPower utilizes its proprietary software for analysis, leasing, project management, and monitoring of clean energy projects. The company is backed by the world’s top investors, including VoLo Earth, Goldman Sachs, Kapor Capital, Microsoft’s Climate Innovation Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, Salesforce, the NY State government, Exelon, the American Family Life Insurance Company Institute for Social Innovation, Accelr8, and others. In 2022, Fast Company named BlocPower the #4 Most Innovative Company in the World.
