Base Power Raises $1 Billion Series D at $13 Billion Valuation, Launches Base Core Home Battery
The Austin startup's new funding round and 39.2 kWh Base Core battery bet that backyard storage can ease grid strain from AI data centers.
Overview
Base Power, an Austin-based home battery company, has raised $1 billion in a Series D round that values the company at $13 billion post-money, according to TechCrunch. The raise arrives less than a year after the company’s previous billion-dollar round, and it coincides with the launch of Base Core, a new 39.2-kilowatt-hour home battery built at the company’s Austin factory, as reported by Electrek.
What We Know
The Series D was led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor Equity Partners, and JPMorganChase’s Strategic Investment Group, with participation from Altimeter, D1 Capital Partners, Sands Capital, Coatue, Layer Global, Energy Impact Partners, Thrive Capital, a16z, Lightspeed, Trust Ventures, CapitalG, and other investors, according to TechCrunch. The round brings Base Power’s total capital raised to more than $2.5 billion, according to Electrek.
Base Power, founded in 2023 according to TechCrunch’s earlier reporting, has grown its installed storage fleet from more than 100 megawatt-hours when it closed its previous $1 billion round in October 2025 to more than 500 megawatt-hours today, according to Electrek. The company is installing roughly 100 batteries a day, equivalent to about 8 megawatt-hours daily, and aims to double that pace by the end of the year, TechCrunch reported, citing a Wall Street Journal account of the company’s installation rate.
Base Core, the newly unveiled battery, stores 39.2 kilowatt-hours and can keep a home running for up to 36 hours; customers can add a second unit for 78.4 kWh and up to 72 hours of backup, according to Electrek. The lithium iron phosphate battery switches a home to backup power in 50 milliseconds during an outage, operates between -22°F and 122°F, carries an IP67 rating for submersion in up to three feet of water, and has undergone high-pressure water and flash-flood testing, Electrek reported. The unit also connects to solar panels and includes a port for recharging from a portable generator, per the outlet.
“We brought together the best hardware and software engineers in the world to build Core – a battery designed to protect American homes while supporting the grid,” said Zach Dell, CEO and cofounder of Base Power, according to Electrek. “It installs in under an hour, switches over seamlessly, is built to handle extreme weather, and delivers extended outage protection at a price Americans can afford.”
Rather than charging customers thousands of dollars upfront, Base Power installs its batteries on a subscription basis. In the Houston area, the company charges $695 for installation, $19 a month, and 13.1 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity, roughly the going regional rate, according to TechCrunch. Base Power retains ownership of the batteries and sells stored electricity back to the grid during periods of high demand, TechCrunch reported; that grid revenue helps subsidize customers’ backup systems, according to Electrek. The company has also launched utility programs with El Paso Electric, Austin Energy, and CoServ totaling more than 200 megawatts of capacity, according to Electrek and The Next Web, both of which report the identical figure.
Base Power operates in Texas and Illinois, with Base Core now available to homeowners in select parts of both states, per Electrek. Zach Dell, the company’s co-founder and CEO, is the son of Michael Dell, according to The Next Web; his father, Dell CEO Michael Dell, did not participate in the new funding round, TechCrunch reported.
Why It Matters
The round arrives as electricity demand climbs due to economywide electrification and the rapid pace of AI data center construction, a dynamic that has strained the grid in several regions, most notably the PJM Interconnection, which serves a large concentration of data centers and includes the Illinois territory where Base Power operates, according to TechCrunch. The Next Web framed Base Power’s approach as “the mirror image of the data-centre squeeze,” describing the company’s model as turning each participating home into a node in a virtual power plant that utilities can draw on when demand peaks.
What We Don’t Know
Neither TechCrunch, Electrek, nor The Next Web disclosed a specific timeline for expansion beyond Texas and Illinois, or a target fleet size the company hopes to reach with the new capital. The Next Web noted that Base Core is, for now, available only in “regions of two states,” and that the virtual-power-plant model depends on reaching a larger, national scale to fully pay off.