Planted Raises $31.8 Million to Accelerate Autonomous Power Deployment
New capital expands Planted’s robotic fleet and launches Sage, its next-generation robot, as demand outpaces the company’s current capacity OAKLAND, Calif., September 15, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Planted has raised $31.8 million to scale autonomous power deployment, with Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health co-leading the round and participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Google,…
New capital expands Planted’s robotic fleet and launches Sage, its next-generation robot, as demand outpaces the company’s current capacity
OAKLAND, Calif., September 15, 2026–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Planted has raised $31.8 million to scale autonomous power deployment, with Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health co-leading the round and participation from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, Google, and Khosla Ventures.
Power demand is rising faster than new capacity can be built. Solar PV remains the largest contributor to new global electricity supply, hitting a record 664 gigawatts in 2025. Still, the world needs terawatts of new generation annually, not gigawatts, to meet projected demand. Power projects require multiyear development cycles and labor-intensive field assembly that relies on a shrinking pool of available, skilled labor. The constraint on new power has moved from generation to deployment. Communities and grid operators are responding by expecting large energy users to bring their own power rather than compete for constrained capacity.
Planted transforms power plants from projects into products, combining planning software, high-density terrain-following solar arrays, storage, and field robotics into one system. That system allows Planted to build on parcels that legacy trackers cannot use, including land with slopes of up to 27%, without grading. It also delivers twice the energy per acre, resulting in smaller project footprints and a lower profile on the landscape.
The array is simplified, designed for automation, and defined in software, so Planted delivers new power in months rather than years. Planted’s most recent build, a 28 MW behind-the-meter project serving a neocloud data center, went from first call to power in ten months, with field construction completed in under three months.
The model is proven and bankable: Planted’s projects carry independent engineering validation and project financing. The company completed Bowes Solar, an 11 MW project in Illinois for Cultivate Power, and will next build Aligned Climate Capital’s Armoracia project on 16 acres, 10 fewer than the original design required. The denser redesign moved the project through local review after the initial layout was rejected. After deploying more than 10 MW in 2025, Planted is on track for 100 MW in 2026, a 10x jump in a single year, with a project pipeline of more than 20 GW.
“Globally, solar needs to be deployed about five times faster than it is today to hit the scale experts project we’ll need by 2050, and the gap is growing as the industry confronts constraints involving supply chains, land, interconnection, and skilled labor,” said Eric Brown, CEO of Planted. “The way to close that gap is to turn the construction of a power plant into a manufacturing problem: building robots and deployment systems, not just projects. We have robots in the field proving the model works today. This round is how we scale it.”
The funding will expand Planted’s robotic fleet and support the launch of Sage, the company’s next-generation robot, which enters the field in late 2026. Sage more than doubles field productivity compared with Planted’s current fleet, a major step toward the company’s goal of a 10x gain in field crew output and even faster time to power.
Each Planted robot is a production-line unit: deployment capacity grows by manufacturing and fielding more robots. Planted’s existing fleet is fully committed through 2027. Each new Sage unit off the line adds capacity, and that new capacity is allocated by deposit, in commitment order. Reservations for 2028 are open now; customers who commit early are first in line for 2027 capacity as new units are fielded.
“Electricity demand is skyrocketing today, while new power generation often takes many years to come online,” said Ricardo Angel, Managing Partner at Piva Capital. “By combining intelligent planning and project development software, high-density racking, and autonomous field robotics, Planted dramatically reduces the land, steel, and labor bottlenecks slowing projects down. The company has developed a much faster and more capital-efficient way to deliver power when industrial energy buyers like data centers need it most.”
“When industries go from bespoke to manufactured, they unlock orders of magnitude more scale at a fraction of the cost. Solar construction is still building custom projects, site by site,” said Mike Schroepfer, Founding Partner at Gigascale Capital. “Planted’s model is the engine this industry needs, and it’s already proven in the field.”
Planted serves developers, independent power producers, data center operators, and other large energy buyers working against fixed delivery dates, supplying low-cost generation and firmed power with energy storage. Starting in 2027, the company will provide powered land: sites that arrive with their own clean power, compact footprints, and no added strain on ratepayers, so large loads show up as net contributors to the grid rather than competitors for it.
The company is hiring across robotics, hardware, commercial, and field operations in Oakland and on project sites nationwide to fulfill its long-term goal of terawatt-scale power deployment: repeatable, automated infrastructure built by a robotic fleet that becomes faster and more capable with every project.
About Planted
Planted is the autonomous power deployment company. Planted combines planning software, high-density terrain-following solar arrays, storage, and field robotics into one system that transforms power plants from bespoke construction projects into manufactured products. The system delivers more power on less land in a fraction of the time. Planted provides low-cost generation and firmed power today and is extending to powered land for customers that cannot wait for the grid. For more information, visit plantedsolar.com.
About Piva Capital
Piva Capital is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm financing industrial innovation across the early and growth stages. Drawing on decades of experience in energy and infrastructure investing, Piva works closely with founders to commercialize and scale hardware, software, and integrated solutions that make critical industries more resilient, efficient, and productive. The firm combines technical and commercial expertise with a global network of partners and professionals spanning more than 90 countries and six continents.
About RA Capital Management
Founded in 2004, RA Capital Management is a multi-stage investment manager dedicated to evidence-based investing in public and private healthcare, life sciences, and planetary health companies. RA Capital creates and funds innovative companies, from private seed rounds to public follow-on financings, allowing management teams to drive value creation from inception through commercialization and beyond. RA Capital’s Planetary Health team focuses on creating and funding companies that commercialize scalable, profitable solutions to planetary challenges.
About Gigascale Capital
Gigascale Capital backs early-stage companies rebuilding the physical economy with solutions that, at scale, are cheaper, more productive, and less polluting. Founded in 2023 by former Meta CTO Mike Schroepfer, Victoria Beasley, and Evaline Tsai, the firm has invested in over 25 companies. Some decarbonize directly. Others create the enabling layers that make hardware and infrastructure faster and cheaper to build. In both cases, climate impact follows from better-performing systems.
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