Energy Startups funded by Y Combinator (YC) 2026

About Oklo Inc.: Oklo Inc. (Oklo) is developing advanced fission power plants to provide emission-free, reliable, and affordable energy. Oklo received a Site Use Permit from the U.S Department of Energy, has performed successful prototypic fuel fabrication, was awarded fuel material from Idaho National Laboratory, developed the first advanced fission combined license application accepted and docketed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and is developing advanced fuel recycling technologies in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy and national laboratories. Oklo has been featured in Time, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Popular Mechanics, Wired, Architectural Digest, Hyperallergic, POWER Magazine, has been the subject of a Harvard Business School case, and is featured in the Oliver Stone documentary Nuclear, among other features.

The next constraint is not intelligence, it is the energy and operational cost of running it. We deploy custom AI models inside critical infrastructure companies that ingest SCADA data, work orders, human interventions, operational data no public model has seen, grounded in physics-informed neural networks and differentiable simulators. This creates a flywheel: more operator data → better process understanding → more efficient operations → cheaper energy → cheaper AI → more deployment → more data. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0uDH6pMn5OE AI compute doubles every 2.2 years. Data center demand grows from 415 to 945 TWh by 2030. Without near-zero energy cost, AI remains limited by human infrastructure. We are the layer that runs AI at zero energy cost. Energy is a $10 trillion market. The infrastructure layer doesn't exist yet. We are building it.

Micora builds a solar-farm-in-a-box that can be shipped anywhere and built without specialized labor. We have designed a new type of solar farm micorgrid that is palletized, lightweight, and deployable. Our system autonomously builds 100kWp of capacity per day and is easily scalable to MWs of capacity which is a size currently only serviced by slow moving and at capacity EPCs. As demand from data centers, advanced manufacturing, and electrification strains existing power infrastructure, the ability to deploy substantial generation quickly is becoming increasingly valuable and unavailable. We are the only company that services utility-scale power needs in weeks.

At Talos, we are building better, more modern predictive maintenance for the power industry with a focus on large transformers. Our devices continuously monitor critical power equipment and detect problems early on using anomaly-detection models. For each fault, we provide detailed analyses of the problem, exactly where and why it happened, as well as next steps teams should take.

Marengo is the AI-native engineering firm automating engineering design, starting with data centers. We’ve generated $70K in revenue in our first month, with $4M in contracts to deliver. Marengo is backed by YC, Exor, Future Planet Capital, undisclosed $2B AUM family office, and other top-tier investors. Our team includes the former President & CEO of Saipem America ($3B+ P&L), former President of Exyte's Advanced Technology Facilities GBU ($6B+ P&L) and more.

We are building nuclear power delivery ships to power our floating compute barges at sea. Our systems are fully standalone, have better cooling, and avoid all the resource competition that leads to local community opposition. Our centralized manufacturing allows us to deploy anywhere on Earth, four times faster than on land.

Maingen builds simulations for industrial operations ($5 trillion slice of the US economy) so frontier labs can train models that actually run power plants, factories, and datacenters.

Madrone builds cooling systems for data centers. In Texas, where most new sites are, Madrone can cool using 30% less power and water, thanks to novel dew-point cooling technology.

Terranox is the first vertically integrated AI-powered uranium exploration company. We find high-grade uranium deposits in North America using AI trained on 70+ years of exploration outcomes. Our mission is to find the fuel we need to power the next century with nuclear energy.

Condor helps large electricity consumers - C&I and data centers - cut electricity costs by helping the grid. We are former electricity traders and energy physicists. We build an AI-powered software that our clients use to optimize their energy procurement - making sure they always have access to cheap & reliable power.

Inviscid AI builds physics-informed AI solutions that transform how buildings and data centers operate. By combining real-time IoT sensor data with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling, we create digital twins that simulate building performance in real time and autonomously optimize operations. Our platform optimizes airflow patterns and ventilation strategies to eliminate dead zones, improve air distribution, and reduce the load on mechanical systems. On the energy side, we minimize HVAC power consumption, reduce cooling costs, and lower overall operational expenses while maintaining optimal thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Beyond immediate operational efficiency, we optimize equipment scheduling and maintenance cycles by predicting system behavior under different conditions, allowing facilities managers to proactively address issues before they become problems. Our physics first approach ensures that we're not just optimizing against historical patterns, but optimizing based on a deep understanding of how air, heat, and energy actually move through your building, enabling us to find solutions that traditional rule-based or purely data-driven systems would miss.

RoboDock builds robots that automate depot operations, like charging and vehicle checks, for electric and autonomous vehicle fleets. We turn fleet depots from manual sites into self-running systems that lower operational costs and increase vehicle uptime.

The best grid connection is no grid connection. Voxel builds vertically integrated energy generation and storage systems for data centers that bypass utility connection delays. By leveraging the vast supply of second-life EV batteries and our novel DC microgrid architecture, Voxel generates datacenter power on site and drastically reduces system cost and time-to-power.

We believe the electricity grid is the most important machine on Earth. If we want electrification to move fast, the teams planning and operating networks need software that is as modern as the challenge. Our thesis is simple. Better decisions come from one unified, trusted network model. When everyone works from the same model, planning becomes consistent, assumptions are visible, and progress stops getting lost in spreadsheets and static reports. Squid is AI powered grid planning in your browser. We have spent years inside National Grid, Octopus Energy, and AWS, building and learning what breaks. Now we are building what we wished existed.

Zephyr Fusion is building the first in-orbit fusion power source: a megawatt-class reactor enabling large-scale industry in space, at a fraction of the cost of equivalent solar. Founded by former physicists from Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories, Zephyr leverages decades of fusion research to deliver a compact magnetic confinement system designed to take advantage of the space environment.

NODI Energy is building distributed energy infrastructure to rewire the grid. We deploy and aggregate batteries at the edge and orchestrate them as distributed nodes, providing locational flexibility to the rigid grid — relieving congestion and unlocking capacity at constrained locations, so data centers can connect in weeks instead of waiting decades for reinforcement.

Astro finds and buys land for new renewable energy projects, secures grid connections at minimal cost, and sells these development-ready projects to larger energy companies. Founded by Alex Fuster, a former Citadel energy trader, Astro's AI models identify profitable grid connections that eliminate the surprise costs causing 80-90% of renewable projects to fail. With the U.S. needing 2,000 gigawatts of new power generation by 2035 for AI data centers and electrification, Astro unlocks development opportunities that traditional methods consistently miss.

Maritime Fusion is building fusion reactors for ships and off grid energy markets. En route on this endeavor we’re commercializing High Temperature Superconducting (HTS) cable technology for power distribution while advancing the physics basis of our HTS tokamak to decarbonize global shipping. Breakeven fusion is coming soon, but the first-of-a-kind (FOAK) reactors will be costly, high maintenance, and have low capacity factors, leading to 5–10x higher electricity cost on the grid. Maritime Fusion is pursuing the most widely accepted approach to fusion, the tokamak, but specifically designed for the marine environment where the challenges that arise between breakeven and a commercially viable energy source are alleviated. The market we're targeting requires 15x less power, lower up-time, and costs the same as alternative fuels but without any emissions. Since fusion does not use highly radioactive fuels or materials – unlike fission – we sidestep the vast majority of regulatory challenges and safety risks associated with nuclear energy. Our team brings over a decade of industry and research experience in plasma physics, nuclear engineering, and electrical engineering with backgrounds at SpaceX, Tesla, Columbia University, and University of Pennsylvania.

A stealth mode startup.

Every battery company spends tens of millions of dollars a year on experiments. Simulations that replace experiments reduce these costs but are currently underutilized in industry because they are hard to create and run. We make simulations accessible to every engineer, by helping them to create models from their own data, then run large scale simulations in the cloud to explore the full design space.

Vista designs, finances, installs, and manages energy storage and solar at commercial, industrial, and multifamily properties for $0 upfront, helping businesses save up to 30% on their energy bills. The founding team previously worked at SpaceX, Rocket Lab, NASA and Firefly.

We make Air Purifier and filters that is certified to eliminate COVID-19 and most other viruses and bacteria. Our technology is independently lab tested, EPA certified and FDA registered. Our air purifiers are already found in homes, businesses and government facilities around the world to help protect their customers and employees from airborne pathogens.

Nectar is the modern AI energy management platform. We automate utility data analysis to optimize energy costs, manage buildings, and report energy efficiency metrics for energy and sustainability teams. Our utility data API uses in-house AI agents to deliver the most accurate granular usage and cost data on the market.

Evoly makes smart electric & water meters. We save a typical utility over $4M a year. Electric and water meter measure your consumption, A smart meter on the other hand not only measure it, it also send this consumption data and a lot more remotely and wirelessly to the utility. We are a plug and play, easy to install, 5 times cheaper smart metering solution. We are a B2B company and our customer are the Utilities Thanks to our software they get 24/7 view on their grid and a wide range of possibilities : - Remote meter reading - Detecting fraud - Turning electricity on and off remotely - Time of use pricing

MaverickX is a chemical technology company advancing natural resource extraction. The company was founded by Eric Herrera, former Department of Defense scientist, and Jesse Evans, former startup operations manager. As resources become more difficult to extract across the energy and mining sectors, new technologies are needed. MaverickX has a portfolio of chemical solutions -- PetroX and LithX -- to enhance recovery of oil from shale reservoirs and metals from low-grade ores. More oil. More metal. Better chemistry.

Batteries have a big role to play in tackling the climate crisis, and it’s essential to make sure that they’re safe and reliable to operate. At Zitara, we build cutting-edge software solutions that empower companies to deeply understand their batteries, both in design and deployment. It’s all part of our work to enable a renewable energy revolution, powered by safer batteries, at a lower cost, with less waste.

KorrAI started in 2021 as a spin-off from a Canadian Space Agency research project. We spent four years building ground motion monitoring for mines and infrastructure, and kept running into the same problem. The engineers who sign off on a site's safety work from decades of reports, sensor readings, and surveys held by consultants, contractors, and site teams, and they assemble that record by hand. TRAIL is our AI platform for those decisions. Mining is our focus, starting with mine closure, where legacy sites carry decades of fragmented records, and a wrong answer has regulatory and safety consequences. We are a 20-person team of geoscientists and AI engineers, and we monitor more than $100 billion in assets across 5 million sq. km. Who we serve: TRAIL is used by the people who manage risk on critical infrastructure. In mining, that means closure professionals, geotechnical engineers, and Engineers of Record at mining companies, engineering consultancies, and regulators. For data centers and other critical infrastructure, risk engineers and underwriters use TRAIL for site selection, feasibility, and construction risk. We have worked with organizations including Agnico Eagle, Hecla, Eldorado Gold Corporation, Stantec, AECOM, Ramboll, Amazon Web Services and Zurich North America.

Ferveret is developing Adaptive Phase Cooling, a next-generation thermal solution for AI data centers inspired by heat transfer principles used in nuclear reactor systems. Our rack-integrated design delivers 35% more usable compute from the same power envelope, with a PUE of 1.03 (vs. the 1.2 industry standard), zero water consumption, and 45°C inlet temperatures that eliminate the need for chillers. Compatible with NVIDIA MGX and HGX architectures, Ferveret's solution uses a proprietary dielectric fluid that is not part of any regulated PFAS category, giving AI infrastructure operators a scalable, water-free path to higher compute density without redesigning their facilities.

EV charging infrastructure today is expensive, difficult to install, and doesn't integrate well with existing products, services, and businesses. HeyCharge solves all of these problems with ultra-low-cost, plug-and-play EV chargers that don't require internet connections and integrate with third-party products via our SDK and APIs. Our customers are energy utilities, property operators, mobility service providers, and more.

Device connectivity, home energy coordination, and grid orchestration in a single platform.

Gridware exists to enhance and protect the mother of all networks: the electrical grid. The grid touches everyone and makes our modern economy possible. But it’s also fragile. When the grid is compromised, everything grinds to a halt, and the consequences can be dire: wildfires burn, land is destroyed, property is damaged, progress stops, and lives are lost. Our team builds smart sensors that help utility companies to immediately detect, find, and fix outages and take steps to prevent new outages, and other related disasters, from happening at all. The need for power will only increase. We protect the grid of today while we build the grid of tomorrow. Gridware is privately held and backed by the best climate-tech and Silicon Valley investors. We are headquartered in San Francisco

Kitekraft systems consist of a tethered electric aircraft, a.k.a. a kite. The kite has 8 onboard (flying) wind turbines. It autonomously flies in figure eights and generates electrical energy from the wind. Our systems need 10x less construction materials compared to a conventional wind turbine and our systems cost half as much.

Statiq connects electric vehicle owners to EV chargers. EV owners can discover chargers near them, pre-book a slot and pay for the usage conveniently. Property owners can buy, share their chargers, manage them and earn by becoming charger hosts with Statiq. Our EV chargers can be found at shopping malls, workplaces, restaurants , hotels, residential spaces.

SINAI Technologies is an enterprise software that helps carbon-intensive companies to price carbon emissions, manage carbon taxes, and reduce emissions in the most cost-effective way.

We remove CO2 and water from the air and use electricity from solar and wind power to turn them into zero net carbon electrofuels. These are gasoline, diesel, and jet fuels that work in existing cars, trucks and planes without requiring modification of their engines, and don't contribute to global warming because they don't add any new CO2 to the atmosphere. Each gallon of our electrofuels means a gallon of fossil oil left in the ground forever. Importantly, these fuels for the first time can compete with fossil fuels on price - our zero net carbon jet fuel has a price of one cent per gallon less than fossil jet fuel. American Airlines ordered 10 million gallons of this fuel and we will start shipping it next year.

At Nuvola, we're commercializing SafeCoat, a spray-on separator that is directly deposited onto electrodes, removing the need for conventional separator films and the massive infrastructure to build them. SafeCoat has been piloted with top-tier battery and automotive manufacturers and is ready for commercial deployment. Industry leaders are drawn to its impact: it reduces fire risk by 99%, cuts manufacturing scrap by 70%, and saves $350M per 40GWh factory. Our capital-light model requires just $8M in CAPEX to reach profitability in 2027.

Validere is a measurement, reporting, and verification (MRV) SaaS company that helps energy organizations transform disconnected, incomplete data into clear and immediately actionable pathways to financial and environmental value. Over 50 of North America's leading energy companies rely on Validere's technology and multidisciplinary experts to understand their physical and environmental commodities and navigate an increasingly complex environment with clarity and ease. Validere is on a mission to better human prosperity by making the energy supply chain efficient and sustainable. The company has offices in Houston, Calgary, and Toronto.

We are a sensor company that aims to accurately capture the behavior of high throughput fluid systems. With this information we can help improve operations while reducing spills and theft. This technology could change the way the oil and gas industry, water municipalities, and anyone dealing with high volume fluid, operates. Fleets of our proprietary lightweight hardware send raw ultrasonic data directly to our server via cellular/satellite; we then use a mix of physics equations, signal processing, and anomaly detection to determine the behavior of fluid (volume and speed) in pipes.

Reach Labs is building long-range wireless power networks that deliver scalable, resilient energy infrastructure.

Bright is Mexico’s #1 residential solar provider (think Sunrun for the developing world, starting first in Mexico). We provide the financing and software that enable thousands of student ambassadors and retail promoters to offer cheaper electricity to homes at no upfront cost, and we work with our network of hundreds of local installers and distributors to satisfy the resulting demand. Our first market is Mexico, which has more sun, higher electricity rates, and lower labor costs than the US. Bright's investors include First Round Capital, Y Combinator, and other top Silicon Valley firms.

Helion is creating the world’s first fusion power plant, enabling a future with unlimited zero-carbon electricity.

Kapacity.io is building the future of smart energy grids with an electricity Load Balancing service focused on buildings.

We use machine learning to accurately forecast electricity prices. Our live customers, including Enel, use our software to improve revenue by millions of dollars per year.

MineralSoft is the leading solution for mineral rights and royalty management. Are you looking for a better way to manage your minerals? Whether you're an investment fund, a family office, an individual, or an advisor, MineralSoft has a tailored solution for you. We combine industry-leading software with experienced, professional service to maximize the value of your assets. Save time, make money, and get peace of mind by managing your oil & gas interests with MineralSoft.

Oolu was founded by Nilmi Senaratna and Dan Rosa in 2015. The company's mission is to provide off-grid households in rural regions in Africa with high quality products at an affordable price. In Wolof, a national language of Senegal, Oolu means ‘trust.’