Piq Energy has raised USD $5 million in seed funding in an oversubscribed round led by Active Impact Investments.
The San Francisco company develops software that automates the engineering studies required to connect new projects to the electricity grid. The round also included Cisco Foundation, Mobilize AI x Energy Ventures, New Climate Ventures, Ascent Energy Ventures, Umami Capital, CLAI Ventures and 9Zero.
The fundraising comes as utilities face mounting pressure from rising electricity demand linked to AI data centres, industrial expansion and broader electrification. Piq is targeting a less visible part of the power sector than chip supply or data centre construction: the time-consuming engineering work required before new generation, storage, manufacturing and computing projects can secure a grid connection.
In the United States, more than 2,300 GW of generation and storage projects are waiting in interconnection queues, according to company figures. That is roughly twice the country's installed generating capacity, underscoring the strain on planning and study processes across the sector.
Every major grid decision, from investment planning to interconnection agreements, depends on engineering studies that can take months or years to complete. Piq's platform is designed to sit on top of existing engineering software and workflows rather than replace them, linking models, data and study processes in a single system.
Since emerging from stealth, the company has managed more than 1,000 transmission grid models and completed more than 10,000 engineering workflows. Customers are using the system to run dozens of analyses each day.
Grid pressure
Strain on grid access is becoming a central issue for energy developers and large power users alike. While investment in generation, storage and network assets continues to rise, the industry's ability to evaluate and approve new connections has not kept pace.
Piq argues this mismatch is turning engineering studies into a bottleneck for economic growth as well as energy transition projects. More than USD $1.5 trillion is expected to be invested in electricity infrastructure over the next five years, increasing the need for utilities and developers to process more studies in less time.
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Tom Nudell founded the company with Chief Engineer Dionysios Stamatiadis. The founding team's background includes Smart Wires, UK Power Networks, EirGrid, APS, Oncor, Palantir and C3 AI.
Nudell previously led global analytics at Smart Wires and has spent much of his career on grid engineering and transmission planning. According to the company, he spent seven years helping utilities run studies to evaluate advanced power flow control and supported work that unlocked more than 2 GW of existing capacity for renewable energy projects.
A personal connection to energy systems also shaped that path. Nudell grew up in an off-grid home in rural Vermont, where solar panels and battery storage were part of daily life, before completing doctoral and postdoctoral research, including work at MIT.
Investor view
The new funding is intended to support broader adoption of the platform among utilities, developers and other organisations planning grid connections. Piq will also use the capital to deepen its grid intelligence layer.
"This is an important milestone for Piq because it allows us to move faster at a time when the industry can't afford to stall. Connecting a project to the grid shouldn't take longer than physically building it. The next terawatt of energy infrastructure is waiting to connect to the grid, not because the physics is hard, but because the engineering can't keep pace," said Tom Nudell, PhD, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Piq Energy.
He added: "I spent seven years helping utilities run studies to evaluate advanced power flow control, which unlocked more than 2 GW of existing capacity for new renewable energy projects. We had to run everything from production cost studies and loadflow analysis to EMT studies, supporting every stage from interconnection to commissioning. Now we're building Piq to help developers and utilities do this at scale with AI agents they can trust. This round lets us accelerate interconnection for utilities and developers deciding what gets built this decade, which will shape the next 100 years of the power grid."
Investors said the company stood out because of its focus on an overlooked infrastructure problem. For backers, the appeal lies in software aimed at a chokepoint in the build-out of power networks rather than in generation assets themselves.
"We invest in companies solving the defining infrastructure challenges of the energy transition, and Piq stood out because of the combination of technical depth, commercial traction and long-term vision," said Mike Winterfield, Founder and Managing Partner of Active Impact Investments.
"The team understands the complexity of the grid better than almost anyone we've met, and they've built a platform that has the potential to become foundational as the grid continues to evolve," Winterfield added.