Why isn’t your infra startup growing?

5 things that stand in the way of your clean infra startup growth.

1️⃣ The VC that invested in your startup is not familiar with project financing

→ When they invested they thought that "markets will take care of it" (no such luck)
→ You got some grant funding together to build your FOAK (and that was a happy day, thank you EU)
→ The VC will contribute equity in the FOAK but dilution is heavy. You realise that VC money is way too expensive to be used to finance customer assets.

2️⃣ Your individual asset size is way under 10 MEUR

→ You wonder why infra funds aren't returning your calls. Then you realise they are not interested in anything under 50M.
→ You realise that the traditional project finance model does not fit small size assets. Executing a "one-off" large investment is very different from what you are looking for.
→ You realize that the statistics showing billions of euros flowing into infra funds concern only large projects and will not help you.

3️⃣ You thought that after FOAK your solution is "bankable"

→ You wonder why banks won't provide debt for your projects. Then you realise that FOAK was just a start (and banks could care less of your revolutionary technology).
→ You realise that you don't really know what bankable means.
→ You realise it took decades for solar and wind to get "bankable" (and you need the money within this year).

4️⃣ Implementing the first project takes time and expertise that you don't yet have

→ Your resourcing plan did not include anyone that understands project finance basics or cashflow calculations. What are OpCo and HoldCo anyway? Even your VC seems confused.
→ All sort of s*it happens when you are building your FOAK (and you feel like you are sinking time and resources into a bottomless pit).
→ Scaling does not follow the project deployment plan you or your VC made. Now they get cold feet when the next financing round is coming up and customer progress is slow.