Optimizing the Grid with AI Climate Modeling — Why We Invested in Sunairio
MassMutual Ventures’ Climate Technology Fund recently invested in Sunairio’s $6.4 million financing round alongside lead investor Buoyant Ventures and Constellation Technology Ventures. This is our latest climate intelligence investment, and our first investment focused on optimizing power supply and grid operations.
The Challenge.
Extreme weather driven by climate change is destabilizing energy markets. Companies across the energy value chain rely on localized weather models to forecast supply and demand, ensure reliability, and guide asset-based decisions. However, current weather models lack the ability to predict hourly grid dynamics beyond two weeks into the future. Traditional climate models, on the other hand, generate weather insights over longer timescales, but can only do so at very coarse space, time, and event resolution due to their computational complexity. At a time of growing unpredictability in energy demand exacerbated by climate change, electrification, and data center expansion — and with greater intermittency of supply due to increasing renewable energy deployment — energy markets and grid planners need advanced weather modelling capabilities now more than ever.
Our View.
We identified the intersection of climate volatility and energy markets as an investment opportunity. To deepen our understanding, we engaged with renewable energy developers, including Low Carbon, a renewable energy firm that has partnered with MassMutual to develop 20 GW of power generation. Based on those conversations, we identified asset-level climate forecasting beyond 15 days as a critical gap in the market. We prioritize startups that can show commercial traction with companies across the energy value chain and are able to cross-sell to different functional groups within large energy companies. That is exactly what we found in Sunairio.
Enter Sunairio.
Sunairio has developed the first high resolution, stochastic climate model for the power grid. Unlike traditional climate models that typically produce just a few possibilities of daily future weather over a large region, Sunairio simulates a thousand highly localized, hourly, long-term forecasts for specific solar or wind farms. This approach offers more realistic predictions and captures more tail risk events, which are becoming more frequent in power systems. Sunairio’s innovation is a game-changer for decision makers who need actionable climate insights. The company is scaling their product offering to include all North American power regions.
Why did we invest in Sunairio?
1.Strong founder-market fit. Sunairio’s founder, Rob Cirincione, brings more than a decade of experience working as an energy trader at Constellation and Boston Energy Trading & Marketing (formerly a division of NRG). He dealt firsthand with trading through the influx of renewables, which introduced a step change in volatility to regional energy markets and grids. His experience allowed him to develop a solution that directly addresses these pain points. Rob recruited a strong technical team, including CTO Eric Hewitt and Senior Data Scientist Tim Ivancic who joined from Understory, a VC-backed startup that developed novel weather risk models.
2. Commercial traction across the value chain. Sunairio has demonstrated the ability to sell to multiple personas and is already being used by major utilities, renewable developers, and energy traders. Notable examples include Constellation using the platform to guide the development of renewables projects and Xcel Energy piloting Sunairio for grid planning purposes.
3. Technical validation from multiple sources. Sunairio’s models have been co-developed and validated by leading academics in computer simulation and energy modelling at Northwestern University and the University of Massachusetts. Sunairio is also a recipient of the NSF Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Grant, which funds less than 14% of the startups that apply after a rigorous technical review.
4. Expert co-investors that add value. We were impressed by the capabilities of our co-investors in this round. Buoyant Ventures, a climate fund focused on early-stage software and data companies, brings deep networks, experience, and expertise in scaling software companies. Constellation Technology Ventures is the venture unit of Constellation, the largest producer of clean energy in the US. They provide access to energy traders, renewables assets, and other players in the power value chain.
Sunairio’s latest funding round will enable the company to expand its product offering across North American power markets and make key hires in software engineering, analytics, and business development. If you or someone you know is interested in joining the Sunairio team, please visit the company’s website to see open roles.
Sunairio is a strong fit for MMV’s Climate Tech Fund as it aligns with two of our three priority themes: climate intelligence and clean power. Beyond capital, our connection to MassMutual can provide portfolio companies like Sunairio access to a network of potential customers in the energy and financial industries who can help accelerate their growth and impact.
