Magnefy —  Resilience + Quality

What problem is Magnefy solving?

Power resiliency and power capacity with the data center boom and electrification. It resonated with my north star and mission to promote energy equity and make sure everyone is powered all the time. I really believe that it shouldn’t be compromised because of AI. While AI is a great tool, power is a basic human right.

How has your thinking changed about the market through your work? 

My perspective on utilities has really changed in the past 12 months, even though people always say it takes a long time. I think that's still the case, but I can feel the change of mindset from different conferences, different innovation initiatives, and how they build the innovation pipeline. I find it very encouraging. Hopefully that will translate to our sales cycle and how we can partner with utilities down the road.

What assumption do you think this industry has wrong? 

I think everyone assumes the distribution network has few opportunities. I actually bet the opposite. I think actually, based on what we saw in Europe, we may be at a transition to tap into the distribution network with our grid-enhancing technologies. 

What has challenged your company in the past year?

It's a cycle. I mean we're still in early stages trying to find product market fit, and even today getting doubt on how to sell to utilities. So navigating the go-to market in different segments, while balancing the technology de-risking, the operation of the startup with limited resources — it's tough. It comes and goes, but overall speaking, I'm still very optimistic and positive.

What's something your competitors underestimate about this market?

Honestly, that's one of the reasons I decided to build in this space. I think they underestimated just how important the quality of the data is, for predictive maintenance. They try to pack a lot of cheap sensors to provide a lot of data, but if the data quality is not good, and it's not reflecting the actual performance with high resolution, I still don't think it provides the value. Based on the customer feedback, I think data quality is something a lot of the competitors underestimate.