About - Kora Power Ventures

Founded in Denver

Rocky Mountain roots, national reach

Kora Power Ventures is a Denver-based $220M venture fund with 12 portfolio companies across clean energy generation, grid storage, and carbon removal. We structured the firm in 2020 as a long-hold fund because energy infrastructure has never fit a 10-year VC clock — and pretending otherwise wastes everyone's time.

Our founding team came from utility operations, carbon markets, and early-stage climate investing. Not from Wall Street. We have commissioned storage systems, negotiated PPAs, and sat across from grid operators at 6am when something stopped working. That background changes how we evaluate deals.

We are venture-backed and structured as a long-hold fund. Our LPs understand that energy infrastructure takes time — permitting, interconnection, regulatory approval. We match our timeline to the asset class, not the other way around.

What We Believe

A fund built around conviction, not optionality

Most climate funds take a broad-basket approach and call it diversification. We disagree. Shallow positions in forty companies produce mediocre returns and no real value-add to founders. We go deep in three verticals — generation, storage, and carbon removal — because those are the verticals where we have operating knowledge and real networks.

We lead rounds. We take board seats. We spend time on regulatory strategy, not just introductions. When a portfolio company needs to navigate FERC interconnection queues or Colorado PUC proceedings, we have done it before.

That focus is also our filter. If a company does not fit within our three core verticals, we pass — regardless of how compelling the pitch. Discipline on scope is what lets us be useful to the companies we do back.

Investment Philosophy

Three pillars, one thesis

Thesis

The energy transition needs capital in generation, storage, and carbon removal simultaneously. Solving one without the others stalls. We invest across all three because the grid requires all three to work.

Our thesis is not a bet on any single technology. It is a bet on the system-level outcome — a reliable, low-carbon grid — and on the founders smart enough to build the pieces that make it possible.

Team

We invest in founders who have touched the problem before. Engineers who ran power plants. Scientists who spent years in the lab before starting a company. Operators who know what a utility procurement process actually looks like.

Domain depth is not sufficient on its own, but it is necessary. We can help with capital strategy and LP introductions. We cannot help a founder understand the technology if they do not already understand it themselves.

Timeline

Energy assets do not follow software timelines. Permitting takes years. Interconnection queues are long. Policy cycles shift capital costs across entire categories. We structured Kora Power with a longer hold period than a typical VC fund precisely because we knew this going in.

We do not pressure founders to optimize for short-term metrics that do not reflect the actual value they are building. We want exits when the business is ready, not when the clock runs out.

Engineer inspecting battery storage units in a grid facility

In the Field

We show up where the work happens

Due diligence for us means visiting the site. Standing next to the battery rack. Watching the grid management software run on actual load data. Reading the interconnection agreement, not just the summary.

Our partners have collective decades of hands-on experience in energy operations. When we say we understand your technology, we mean it in the literal sense. That makes us better investors and more useful board members.

It also means founders trust us with the real problems — the ones that do not make it into the pitch deck.

Meet the Team

Who We Are as a Fund