Startup Series: Soluna

Today's guest is John Belizaire, CEO of Soluna. Soluna is the leading developer of green data centers for batchable computing, powered by wasted renewable energy. Soluna's scalable, on-demand data centers buy every excess megawatt from renewable energy projects, increasing project revenue while eliminating wasted energy. Implementing Soluna data centers is a low-risk, low-friction process due to the company's four pillars of expertise: Project development, energy markets, project finance, and computing technology. Soluna has molded this unique expertise into a proven project finance structure and revenue-generating solution. John is a versatile CEO and serial entrepreneur who has successfully founded and scaled multiple technology companies over a 20-year career. Before Soluna, John was the founder and CEO of FirstBest, a transformative insurance software company acquired by Guidewire Software, and Theory Center, an e-commerce software company acquired by BEA Systems. In this episode, John explains Soluna's mission, approach, and the problem the startup is setting out to solve. He outlines why renewable energy can be inaccessible and the future of a connected energy grid in the clean future. We also dive into Soluna's competitors, customer base, and recent acquisition. It was great to sit down with John and learn more about Soluna. Enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at [email protected], where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests. Episode recorded November 30th, 2021