Listen to this articleCritical Loop, a Los Angeles-based provider of modular microgrids for industrial power, has raised $26 million in Series A funding that includes equity and equipment financing. The round was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover Technology Investment Management.
Critical Loop, a Los Angeles-based industrial power solutions provider, announced a $26 million Series A funding round. The round includes equity and equipment financing and brings the company’s total capital raised to $49 million. It was led by Conifer Infrastructure Partners and Hanover Technology Investment Management, with participation from Better Ventures, Climate Capital, Adapt Nation Capital, Cyrus Ventures, and other investors.
What is Critical Loop?
Critical Loop develops and deploys modular, scalable microgrids that deliver reliable on-site power to industrial facilities, data centers, utilities, and critical infrastructure facing grid constraints. Its energy platform integrates autonomous control software, battery energy storage systems, and flexible power generation to optimize existing grid capacity while adding incremental on-site resources. This approach enables customers to access reliable, cost effective electricity in days or weeks instead of the years typically required for traditional grid interconnection.
The company operates two primary commercial models:
- Energy as a service agreements, in which Critical Loop retains ownership of the assets.
- Long term service agreements, in which the customer purchases the equipment and Critical Loop provides ongoing remote orchestration and operations.
Systems range from 5 to 100 megawatt-hours and target mid market industrial and commercial real estate loads. Critical Loop is currently active across California and plans geographic expansion.
What is Critical Loop’s technology?
At the core of Critical Loop’s offering is a proprietary “combiner” hardware system paired with UL-certified controllers. The combiner integrates diverse power sources (including the grid, multiple battery types, and on-site generation) without requiring custom engineering for each installation. The platform is hardware agnostic, currently compatible with batteries from six manufacturers and units ranging from 250 kW to 2 MW. Software enables remote orchestration, real time coordination with utilities for load flexibility, and continuous monitoring.
This design allows microgrids to function as flexible extensions of the grid rather than fully off-grid solutions. Most facilities only need supplemental capacity during peak constraint periods (often 1–2 MW shortfalls), so the system minimizes battery requirements while maintaining reliability. Installations are standardized and extensible, enabling rapid scaling by adding additional storage modules as needed.
- San Diego International Airport: Critical Loop manages 4 MWh of permanent storage under a long term agreement.
- TeraWatt Infrastructure: Provided load flexibility for fleet charging hubs that had been denied 10 MW of grid capacity due to multi year interconnection delays.
- LG Energy Solution Vertech: Entered a supply agreement for domestically manufactured energy storage systems.
The company deployed approximately 50 MWh of microgrids in the past year and has set internal targets of at least 50 MWh in 2026, scaling toward 100 MWh.
Leadership and Team:
CEO Balachandar (Bala) Ramamurthy co-founded the company. He previously served as chief engineer at SpaceX, where he led flight safety programs. The team includes engineers and operators with experience from SpaceX, Tesla, Palantir, and Rivian, bringing expertise in complex systems integration, high reliability operations, and large scale energy infrastructure.
Ramamurthy has highlighted design parallels between spacecraft and microgrids: both must be highly maintainable and economically viable without frequent physical intervention once deployed.
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How will Critical Loop use the funds?
The $26 million will accelerate:
- Commercial deployments and partner projects, including the San Diego International Airport initiative.
- Research and development to enhance the platform’s autonomous control and integration capabilities.
- Production scaling and supply chain optimization for faster hardware delivery.
- Geographic expansion beyond California.
U.S. industrial and data center growth has created acute power shortages, with interconnection queues stretching years and utilities issuing load rejection notices. Critical Loop’s model addresses the “speed to power” gap by bypassing traditional transmission and distribution upgrades. Its microgrids provide targeted, flexible capacity that works in tandem with the existing grid, offering a faster, lower-cost alternative to building new utility-scale infrastructure.
The funding round, backed by infrastructure-focused investors, signals strong validation of the battery storage plus software approach at a time when regulatory bodies are exploring flexible tariffs and distributed energy resources to relieve grid pressure. With total capital now at $49 million, Critical Loop is positioned to scale deployments, refine its technology agnostic platform, and capture share in the expanding market for rapid response industrial power solutions.
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