• Exclusive Content
  • Events
  • Endeavor Business Media Energy
    1. Renewables

    Texas Solar startup gains $30M investment to scale up Clean Energy Connections for C&I Customers

    Jan. 7, 2022
    Solarpanels V2 61d848f57a358

    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.

     -- -- -- 

    (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]).

    About the Author

    Rod Walton, EnergyTech Managing Editor | Senior Editor

    For EnergyTech editorial inquiries, please contact Managing Editor Rod Walton at [email protected].

    Rod Walton has spent 15 years covering the energy industry as a newspaper and trade journalist. He formerly was energy writer and business editor at the Tulsa World. Later, he spent six years covering the electricity power sector for Pennwell and Clarion Events. He joined Endeavor and EnergyTech in November 2021.

    Walton earned his Bachelors degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma. His career stops include the Moore American, Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise, Wagoner Tribune and Tulsa World. 

    EnergyTech is focused on the mission critical and large-scale energy users and their sustainability and resiliency goals. These include the commercial and industrial sectors, as well as the military, universities, data centers and microgrids. The C&I sectors together account for close to 30 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.

    He was named Managing Editor for Microgrid Knowledge and EnergyTech starting July 1, 2023

    Many large-scale energy users such as Fortune 500 companies, and mission-critical users such as military bases, universities, healthcare facilities, public safety and data centers, shifting their energy priorities to reach net-zero carbon goals within the coming decades. These include plans for renewable energy power purchase agreements, but also on-site resiliency projects such as microgrids, combined heat and power, rooftop solar, energy storage, digitalization and building efficiency upgrades.

    Email