WASHINGTON, May 21, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Rhizome, the leading climate resilience planning platform for the power grid, today announced the close of a $6.5 million oversubscribed Seed funding round led by Base10 Partners. The company will use the funding to scale their AI platform and team as they continue to help utilities protect their grid and customers from the impacts of extreme weather events. Rhizome will focus on building out its existing platform, new product research and development, and expanding its geographic footprint domestically and internationally.

Rhizome, launched in 2023, supports utilities by helping them model the impacts of increasingly severe extreme weather events against their systems. By leveraging AI against climate risk data and digital representations of the physical grid, Rhizome's platform identifies vulnerabilities and prioritizes resilience investments and upgrades. This fundraise will further fuel Rhizome's mission to integrate climate intelligence into utility planning workflows at a time when grid resilience has never been more crucial.

Extreme weather events are rapidly increasing in frequency, intensity, and cost. In 2024 alone, the U.S. faced 27 billion-dollar climate and weather disasters, totaling over $182 billion in damages. For electric utilities, the stakes are particularly high. A McKinsey analysis found that major storms have cost individual utilities an average of $1.4 billion over a 20-year period, underscoring the urgent need for smarter, more resilient infrastructure planning in the face of growing climate volatility.

At the same time, electric utility capital expenditures hit a record $179 billion, with projections rising to $194 billion in 2025. In an environment where every dollar counts, utilities need advanced planning tools that can simulate a range of climate scenarios — removing the guesswork from resilience planning and helping every dollar go further.

"We set out to partner with investors who deeply understand the power sector and share our commitment to solving pressing climate resilience challenges," said Mishal Thadani, Co-founder and CEO of Rhizome. "This funding allows us to scale our work and continue refining a suite of products that help utilities prepare the grid for an increasingly uncertain future."

Base10 is joined in the Seed round by first-time Rhizome investors in MCJ and CLAI. They join Convective Capital, El Cap, Streetlife Ventures, Stepchange, and Everywhere in closing out the oversubscribed round, all of whom also participated in prior Rhizome fundraises.

“Resilience is unquestionably one of the most important factors in ensuring a safe, reliable power grid,” said Rexhi Dollaku, General Partner at Base10 Partners. “Mish, Rahul, and the team bring the right mix of vision, urgency, and technical depth to solve this challenge, and we’re proud to support them.”

In just under two years, Rhizome has developed and commercialized a suite of mission-specific products used by electric utilities in diverse geographical regions. Its flagship product, gridADAPT, supports long-term infrastructure planning by helping utilities prioritize investments that improve reliability and resilience. This was followed by the launch of gridFIRM, a first-of-its-kind platform for wildfire risk mitigation, and most recently, gridCAVA –– an affordable climate vulnerability assessment tool designed specifically for municipal and cooperative utilities. Built on Rhizome’s scalable, cloud-based Aspen platform, these tools round out a powerful portfolio of climate resilience planning tools designed to model current and future climate risk against utility infrastructure, available to utilities across Rhizome’s expanding geographical footprint.

Rhizome is actively engaged in utility partnerships across the U.S. and Canada, supporting organizations facing a range of region-specific climate risks. Current customers include Avangrid, Seattle City Light, Vermont Electric Power Company (VELCO), Vermont Electric Cooperative (VEC). Rhizome also has a range of strategic collaborations that include EPRI’s Climate READi, KPMG, Black and Veatch, and the University of Connecticut.

Rhizome is expanding its platform, growing its team, and partnering with more utilities to strengthen resilience in the face of climate-driven threats. Contact Rhizome or visit here to learn more about the company's expanding portfolio of climate risk solutions.

About Rhizome
Rhizome is an AI-powered software platform that helps utilities identify vulnerabilities from climate threats, quantify risk at high resolutions, and measure the economic and social benefits of grid-enhancing investments. Rhizome provides the highest standard of equitable climate risk mitigation to ensure that communities and businesses are protected against intensifying extreme weather events.

About Base10 Partners
Founded by Adeyemi Ajao and TJ Nahigian, Base10 is a San Francisco-based venture capital fund investing in founders who believe purpose is key to profits and companies that are automating sectors of the Real Economy, including transportation, retail, logistics, and construction. Through its program, The Advancement Initiative, Base10 aims to donate 50% of profits to underfunded colleges and universities to support financial aid and other key initiatives. Portfolio companies include Notion, Figma, Nubank, Stripe, Motive, Chili Piper, and Popmenu. Connect via base10.vc.

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