The bottleneck in geothermal moved from the drill to the turbine. This SpaceX alum raised $22M to fix it
The race to power artificial intelligence has a problem that solar panels and wind turbines cannot fix on their own: the electricity has to be there at 3am, in still air, under cloud.
Critical Energy, a Los Angeles startup founded by a former SpaceX engineer, has raised $22mn to chase that always-on demand with geothermal, the renewable that behaves like a conventional power plant. The bet is less about drilling deeper than about building the bit above the ground faster.
The funding breaks down as a $19mn seed, described as raised across multiple rounds and co-led by Susa Ventures and Upfront Ventures, plus $3mn of venture debt from Silicon Valley Bank.
The bottleneck moved underground to overhead
For five years, the geothermal story has been a subsurface one. Borrowing horizontal drilling and fracking techniques from the oil and gas industry has cut the cost and time of reaching the Earth’s...
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