Daylight Energy, a pioneering company in the distributed energy space, today announced the successful closing of $75 million in financing to accelerate its crypto-powered distributed energy network. The funding package supports Daylight’s mission to turn homes into mini power-plants, reward homeowners for storage and solar participation, and build a scalable, decentralised energy ecosystem.
The new capital comprises two parts: $15 million in equity financing, led by Framework Ventures, with participation from investors including a16z crypto, Lerer Hippeau, M13, Room40 Ventures, EV3, Crucible Capital, Coinbase Ventures, and Not Boring Capital. The remainder is a $60 million project-development facility, led by Turtle Hill Capital, to support the deployment of solar + battery systems and the network operations.
Daylight’s business model is centred on converting residential roofs and storage units into revenue-generating assets for both homeowners and the wider grid. Through its subscription offering, homeowners can access solar panels and an oversized battery at no upfront cost. They pay a predictable monthly rate that is lower than typical utility bills, while the system owner, Daylight, retains rights to aggregate the stored energy across homes and feed into the grid during peak demand, earning premium rates that help lower cost for subscribers.
CEO Jason Badeaux stated: “To build the largest decentralized energy network in the world, you need to incentivise the behaviour change to adopt distributed energy, and catalyse a huge amount of capital behind it. Crypto is uniquely good at doing those two things, and creates opportunities to align incentives, drive down costs, and rebuild this industry on a foundation of transparency, ownership, and shared economic upside.”
A key innovation is Daylight’s upcoming protocol, DayFi, which opens energy infrastructure to decentralised-finance (DeFi) markets. Through DayFi, investors will be able to earn returns tied directly to the electricity revenues generated by Daylight’s solar-plus-storage portfolio. In effect, electricity becomes a new asset class accessible via token-native structures.
The funding allows Daylight to scale its operations, currently active in states such as Illinois and Massachusetts, by expanding its installer partnerships, rolling out devices to homeowners, and building out its dispatchable battery network. As the grid faces rising electricity demand, ageing infrastructure and more frequent outages, a distributed architecture like Daylight’s is positioned to deliver improved resilience, lower bills and new participation models for homeowners.
This strategic financing underscores the convergence of renewable energy, distributed storage, and crypto-incentive mechanisms. Daylight is pioneering a hybrid model: the utility-scale economics of grid dispatchable power combined with consumer-facing subscription simplicity and tokenised incentives. As the clean-energy transition accelerates, this approach may offer a blueprint for scaling distributed energy networks globally.
FAQs
Q1: What exactly is Daylight Energy’s business model?
A1: Daylight offers homeowners solar panels plus a large battery under a subscription model (or purchase option). The homeowner pays a monthly rate lower than standard utility bills, while Daylight installs and owns the system, aggregates the batteries into a virtual power-plant and sells stored energy back to the grid during peak times. That grid revenue helps lower the monthly cost for participants.
Q2: How does crypto or DeFi factor into Daylight’s offering?
A2: Daylight uses tokenised incentives for homeowners (currently “Sun Points”, with a native token envisioned) and is launching DayFi, a yield protocol where investors can earn returns backed by electricity revenues from the network. This combination aligns homeowner incentives, investor capital and grid-services monetisation.
Q3: Where is Daylight currently operating?
A3: Initial deployments are in the U.S. states of Illinois and Massachusetts, where Daylight is funding homeowner subscriptions both directly and through installer partnerships. The new funding supports expansion beyond those states in due course.
Q4: What problem is Daylight solving?
A4: Traditional residential solar faces high customer-acquisition and financing costs (more than 60% of solar system cost) and long pay-back periods. Additionally, centralised grids are under stress, with rising demand, ageing infrastructure and higher outage risk. Daylight’s model addresses both by offering no-upfront cost systems, predictable monthly payments, battery backup and grid-participation revenue.
Q5: Why is the $75 million financing significant?
A5: The $15 million equity investment plus $60 million project facility provide the capital needed to scale installations, build out dispatchable battery networks and launch the DayFi protocol. It signals investor confidence in the model and supports growth of this crypto-enabled distributed energy network.
