For many energy innovators, securing venture capital may seem an impossible challenge. Having recently earned a grant from the United States Department of Energy to create a solution called Partner AI, Rho AI is reaching its seventh month of development.

Faster solutions

The impetus for renewable energy’s recent growth can be traced to many factors, particularly the threats imposed by climate change. As the global community attempts with great difficulty to set and meet its climate change targets, clean energy innovators are doubling their efforts to slow the progression of climate change.

Rho AI’s developers recognize the urgency of Partner AI’s ability to potentially slow climate change. "If you want to believe in climate change, then you’ll probably also believe that there’s a temporal scale that’s important here," said Josh Browne, cofounder of the company.

Versatile responses

"Energy investment is different. The tech is distributed," said Browne. He said Partner AI will be useful on a global scale thanks to the widespread presence of computers and the Internet. These technologies can free entrepreneurs from geographical constraints such as the need to network in specific metro areas. Venture capital tends to be concentrated in specific coastal markets within the United States. It also is not distributed evenly internationally. 

This dispersal of technology provides a challenge to venture capitalists because "[clean energy developers] are not all in Boston or the Bay Area; they’re everywhere," Browne said.
In addition, venture capitalists also face time-management difficulties. Investors are limited by the time they can give to finding investment opportunities. Partner AI can change that by making connections between venture capitalists’ financial portfolios, investment histories, and potential innovators.

"On the venture capital side, ideally it would get to the point where, unprompted, it would notify a particular venture capitalist," Browne said.

Possible risks

The novelty of applying artificial intelligence lies in not only its complexity but also the current scope of technology’s abilities.

According to Browne, the tools used in Partner AI were only in their nascent form five years ago — and much has changed since then. With the creation of open-source software development and use practices, software engineering has experienced a boom in growth.

Accompanying this growth, the hardware that complements the software also has improved. "Now we have cloud [Graphics Processor Unit] access. That changes things as well. Now we can get cheap [Graphics Processor Unit] usage. That didn't exist five years ago either," Browne said.

According to Browne, energy venture capitalists are working with Produce AI as co-founders or early partners who provide guidance in the development process.

Source:Green Biz

---

Picture credit to:Sebastian Unrau