Manufacturing the Capability Cannon: Base Power's $13B story
Chapter 3 of the Book of Base. In August 2026, Packy McCormick published his third deep dive on Base Power — "Manufacturing the Capability Cannon" — as the company announced a $1B Series D, co-led by Ribbit Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Addition and JPMorganChase's Strategic Investment Group, at a $12B pre-money valuation, putting Base at $13B and making it the second most valuable energy startup in the world behind Helion. The round was fully subscribed within a day and multiples oversubscribed by Sunday.
Winning the High Ground. Base Core, the in-house-built home battery, is now the highest-capacity residential battery on the market (39.2 kWh vs 25 kWh for Gen 1 and 13.5 kWh for Tesla Powerwall 3), with a 20 kW inverter, US-sourced components assembled at its Austin factory BF1, a 50ms transfer time (10x faster than Gen 1), and a design brief that runs Safety, Function, Reliability, Cost, Install, Serviceability, Beauty, Delight. It operates down to -22°F, is submarine-tested to three feet of water, and its new Disco disconnect cuts installs from three steps to two, reducing scarce electrician time.
Capabilities as the product. Base cancelled its partner-built Gen 2 battery (exiting with roughly $1M in penalties instead of a potential $15M), brought manufacturing in-house, built BF1 in the old Austin American-Statesman press building, and wrote its own manufacturing-execution software that now controls the factory's 21 robots. Zach Dell calls the accumulated deployments, engineering, manufacturing, brand, balance-sheet and policy chops the "Capability Cannon" — a set of capabilities Base can aim at new geographies, products and the AI buildout.
Demand outstripping supply. In July 2026, Base signed over 6,000 new battery members (roughly 40% more than June), set an install record of more than 2,000 systems, and has deployed 585 MWh, aiming to pass 1 GWh by year-end. Its utility business grew from one Bandera Electric Cooperative pilot to five partnerships totalling 220 MW, with 58% of July installs in regulated-utility territories, and Austin Energy signed up more than 1,000 members in its first month. Base launched in Chicagoland in June, and its below-market-rate retail plan Base Energy passed 14,000 members within three months.
Pointing the Cannon at AI. The essay closes with Base preparing to scale its strategy and point its Capability Cannon at the AI infrastructure buildout — "bringing the power to the compute, and the compute to the power" — with the stated ambition to become the largest energy company, and possibly the largest company, in the world.
Read more: Not Boring — Base Power Company: Chapter 3
