Software eating the grid, finally
The hosts:
David Delfassy, TDK Ventures
Moritz Müller, SET Ventures
What is this Ripple about?
Electrification is a hardware story that quietly cannot happen without a software layer for dispatch, asset management, and optimisation. A working session on where that software is actually being built, bought, and deployed in 2026
Why this topic timely or urgent in 2026
Grid congestion, battery proliferation, and the rise of flexible loads (EVs, heat pumps, data centres) have made the optimisation layer the binding constraint, not the hardware. Utilities are slow buyers, IPPs are fragmented, and the best software companies are quietly being absorbed into asset owners. The exit map looks nothing like SaaS
Key questions or challenges being explored
Where is the durable value in grid and asset software, optimisation, dispatch, asset management, or the data layer underneath?
Who actually buys this software at scale, utilities, IPPs, aggregators, or corporates, and what does the sales cycle really look like?
Are we building venture-scale companies here, or features that get absorbed into hardware OEMs and asset owners?
The key tension or debate at the heart of this discussion
Independent software company versus feature of the asset owner. The bull case is that asset proliferation and AI-native optimisation finally enable a Palantir-of-the-grid. The bear case is that optimisation software is always worth more to the asset owner than to anyone else, so the best companies in this space are strategic acquisition targets dressed up as platforms. Is the winning company a Palantir, a Salesforce, or an arm of E.ON?
Who would get the most value from attending this Ripple?
Investors in energy software and grid-edge, corporates building or buying optimisation stacks, and founders deciding whether to sell to utilities, asset owners, or build their own balance sheet.