Disclaimer: This is a personal investment thesis written for my own records and published for educational purposes only. It is not investment advice. I invested $100 in COI Energy via Republic in April 2021. All equity crowdfunding investments are highly speculative and carry a significant risk of total capital loss. Please conduct your own research before making any investment decision.
A note on timing: This memo is written from the perspective of April 2021, at the point of investment. A retrospective section at the end reflects on what has happened since.
Company Snapshot
COI Energy is a B2B SaaS platform that helps commercial and industrial customers reduce energy costs, manage peak demand, and monetise their flexible energy capacity through utility demand response programmes. The company is raising on Republic under Regulation CF, targeting up to $1.07 million at a $18 million pre-money valuation cap via a Crowd SAFE with a 20% discount.
Investment date: April 2021
Amount: $100 USD
Platform: Republic
Security type: Crowd SAFE ($18M cap, 20% discount)
Company valuation cap at investment: $18,000,000
Campaign closed: 3 April 2021
Total raised: $589,026 from 1,758 investors
The Wave: Why This Market, Why Now
In April 2021, the energy transition was not yet the dominant narrative it would become. But the structural forces were already in place. The US commercial and industrial sector was consuming approximately 70% of the nation's electricity, and 30% of that energy was being wasted — a $55 billion annual problem that produced over 300 million metric tons of carbon emissions. The gap between what buildings consumed and what they needed to consume was enormous, measurable, and addressable with software.
The smart grid market was valued at approximately $92 billion globally and growing. Utilities were under increasing regulatory pressure to reduce peak demand and integrate distributed energy resources. The combination of IoT sensors, machine learning, and cloud infrastructure had finally made real-time demand management economically viable for mid-market commercial customers — not just the large enterprises that could afford bespoke energy management systems.
The Biden administration had just taken office. The American Jobs Plan was being drafted. Clean energy infrastructure was about to receive its largest federal investment in history. The regulatory and political tailwinds were as strong as they had ever been.
Why now? The convergence of affordable IoT hardware, maturing ML capabilities, and a newly favourable policy environment created a window where a well-positioned energy SaaS company could capture significant market share before the incumbents — Siemens, Honeywell, Johnson Controls — moved down-market.
The Surfer: Team and Traction
SaLisa Berrien is one of the most credentialed founders I had encountered in equity crowdfunding to that point. She had spent 25 years in the electric power and smart grid industries. She was a Board Trustee at the University of Pittsburgh, a Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab alumna, and had been recognised by Google for Startups as one of 30 Black founders to watch in 2021.
The traction at the time of the raise was genuinely impressive for a company at this stage:
- 150+ paying customers, including Citi, US Foods, PBS Studios, Amalie Arena, and Publix Supermarkets
- 100% lifetime customer retention rate — a remarkable number for any SaaS business
- Exclusive utility partnerships with Tampa Electric Company (TECO) and New York Power Authority (NYPA)
- SAP App Center listing — the only energy on-demand platform on the platform
- Backed by Morgan Stanley Multicultural Innovation Lab and SAP.iO
- Recognised by Rise of the Rest, MassChallenge, Nasdaq Milestone Maker, and 76West
The combination of a domain expert founder, blue-chip enterprise customers, and utility partnerships was a genuinely strong signal for a company at this valuation.
The Moat: Defensibility
COI Energy's competitive position rested on two overlapping advantages.
The first was the utility partnership structure. TECO and NYPA had integrated COI's white-label solution into their demand response programmes. This is not a marketing relationship — it is an operational dependency. Utilities do not switch demand response software vendors easily; the integration costs and regulatory compliance requirements create meaningful switching costs.
The second was the customer retention rate. A 100% lifetime retention figure, if accurate, suggests the platform is genuinely embedded in customer operations rather than being a discretionary tool. Energy savings are immediately measurable and financially material — customers who see their bills drop have a strong incentive to stay.
The moat was real but narrow. COI was competing in a market where Siemens, Honeywell, Schneider Electric, and Johnson Controls all had larger balance sheets, existing enterprise relationships, and the ability to bundle energy management with broader building management systems. The defensibility was in the mid-market and the utility channel — segments the incumbents had not prioritised.
The Numbers: Valuation and Position Sizing
At an $18 million SAFE cap with a 20% discount, the effective entry valuation was $14.4 million. The company was reporting over $100,000 in revenue for the prior 12 months and projecting $25 million ARR by 2022 — an ambitious target that implied approximately 250× revenue growth in 18 months.
The $18 million cap was reasonable given the traction and the market opportunity. The 20% discount provided meaningful downside protection if the company raised its next round at a lower valuation than expected.
I invested $100 — the minimum. This was a deliberate decision. The thesis was compelling but the revenue projection was extremely aggressive, and the company was still early-stage. The $100 position was sized as a learning investment: enough to create genuine interest in following the company's progress, small enough that a total loss would be immaterial.
In retrospect, the position size was appropriate. But the reasoning behind it was not as disciplined as it should have been — I was making a $100 bet because I was uncertain, not because I had a framework for position sizing at this stage.
Risk Factors (As I Saw Them in April 2021)
1. Revenue projection risk. The $25M ARR by 2022 target was extremely aggressive. A company generating $100K+ in revenue would need to grow approximately 250× in 18 months. That kind of growth is possible in software, but it requires either a massive distribution event or a step-change in enterprise sales velocity that was not yet evident.
2. Competition risk. The incumbents — Siemens, Honeywell, Schneider Electric — had the resources to move down-market if the opportunity proved large enough. A well-funded startup could also enter the space with a better-capitalised product.
3. Utility dependency. The TECO and NYPA partnerships were the core of the distribution thesis. If either utility changed their demand response programme structure or switched to a competitor, the revenue impact could be significant.
4. Founder concentration. SaLisa Berrien was clearly the driving force behind the company. The business was deeply dependent on her relationships, her domain expertise, and her ability to execute. Any change in her involvement would be a material risk.
5. Capital efficiency. The company had raised $1M on a convertible note prior to the Republic raise. Whether that capital had been deployed efficiently was not fully transparent from the campaign materials.
Go/No-Go Decision (April 2021)
GO — $100 committed via Republic.
The minimum position. The thesis was real — the market was large, the founder was credentialed, the traction was genuine, and the valuation was reasonable. But the revenue projections were aggressive enough that I was not willing to commit more than the minimum. This was a watch-and-learn position.
Retrospective: Five Years Later
COI Energy is still operating. That is the first thing to note — many companies that raise on Republic at this stage do not survive five years.
The $25M ARR target for 2022 was not achieved. The company has continued to grow its customer base and has expanded its platform capabilities, but the explosive growth trajectory implied by the campaign projections did not materialise. This is not unusual — most equity crowdfunding campaigns present optimistic projections, and the gap between projection and reality is one of the most consistent patterns in the sector.
The $18M valuation cap has not been tested by a subsequent priced round at a higher valuation, which means the SAFE has not yet converted. The investment remains in the form of a Crowd SAFE — a promise of future equity rather than actual equity.
The honest assessment is that this was a reasonable bet on a credible founder in a large market, made at a fair valuation, with a minimum position size that reflected appropriate uncertainty. The investment has not failed. It has also not succeeded in any measurable way yet. It is in the same state of suspended animation as many early-stage equity crowdfunding positions: alive, unresolved, and waiting for a liquidity event that may or may not come.
If I were applying the SBC framework today, I would still invest — but I would have a clearer view of what I was buying. The $100 minimum was the right size. The reasoning behind it was not rigorous enough.
| Metric | At Investment (Apr 2021) | Current (Mar 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Investment Amount | $100 | — |
| Security | Crowd SAFE | Crowd SAFE (unconverted) |
| SAFE Cap | $18,000,000 | $18,000,000 |
| Effective Entry Valuation | $14,400,000 (20% discount) | — |
| Estimated Value | $100 | ~$100 |
| Return | — | 1.0× (nominal, unconverted) |
| Status | Active | Active |
All financial data sourced from the COI Energy Republic campaign page, the SEC Form C filing, and Republic campaign updates. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.
