Vancouver, BC — 2026

Sovereignty Is
Infrastructure.

5
Exits
9.5x
MOIC
$140M+
Raised for energy
Five years advising energy companies. $140M raised for founders in this category. Now deploying our own capital.
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02 / Conviction

Capital is timeless.
Conviction is not.

The most important infrastructure being built right now doesn't have a weapons contract. It has a power purchase agreement. The companies that control the power stack — storage, grid software, modular compute, critical minerals — will define the next 20 years of geopolitics. We're backing them at seed, before the category becomes obvious.

"You either control your power
or someone else controls you."
Nicholas Roche
GP, Cinderwood Fund I
Nicholas Roche
Vancouver, BC
03 / The GP

Nicholas Roche

Solo GP — Cinderwood Fund I
Selected exits
AdvisorStream → Broadridge
FoxPass → Splashtop
DataSpark → ThreeColts

Five years as a growth operator and consultant — scaling software companies, running their capital raises, and sitting at the table through every exit. That work taught me what makes a company acquirable. The energy advisory work taught me where the next acquirable companies are being built.

Advised the VP of North America at On.Energy through a $125M raise. Running BioEsol's $50M Series A now — $15M already closed. The 8,600-operator network came from being inside those rooms, not building a list. Cinderwood is where both sides of that work converge.

Nicholas Roche
9.5x
Blended MOIC — 5 exits, 2019–2024
$140M+
Raised for energy companies (advisory)
8,600
Operator network
Vancouver, BC — Solo GP — US & Canada
04 / Mission

One bet.
Five entry points.

01 Grid Resilience
02 Hardware Lock-In
03 Dual-Use Infrastructure
04 AI Physical Bottlenecks
05 Critical Minerals Technology
Primary capital: Grid Resilience + Hardware Lock-In · Remaining categories opportunistic
Index
Fund I
Focus
Seed · Deep Tech · US & Canada
05 / The Problem

The grid wasn't
built for this.

AI → Energy Crisis
Power → National Security
Grid Failure → Sovereignty Failure
06 / Thesis

The bet is
sovereign power.

$10M · Seed · US & Canada · Hardware-Software Convergence
"The companies that bypass the interconnection queue will be the infrastructure winners of this decade. Nobody is funding them at seed."
$600B
Hyperscaler capex projected, 2026 — all of it needs power
5–10yr
Average interconnection queue wait — the window for co-location plays
07 / What We Back

What we
back.

01
Energy Infra + Sovereignty
Battery management software embedded at critical facilities and hyperscaler campuses. Hardware ships once. The optimization contract renews on 3-year cycles and the switching cost is a full re-qualification — nobody does that mid-contract.
02
Hardware Lock-In
When your hardware is embedded in a grid-critical facility, churning means a 12-month procurement and re-certification process. That's the moat SaaS promised and rarely delivered.
03
Dual-Use Infrastructure
A modular data center deployed at a mining site can serve a hyperscaler with a software update. The hardware doesn't move. The contract doubles. Base Power proved this model in Texas — we're backing the companies doing it at the infrastructure layer.
04
AI Physical Bottlenecks
AI scaling is a physics problem, not a software one. Interconnects, power delivery, and thermal management are the hard limits. The companies solving them at chip and system level become qualification-cycle problems to replace — Ayar Labs showed how this exits.
05
Critical Minerals Technology
Yield optimization software deployed at copper, lithium, and cobalt extraction sites. The hardware flywheel applies one layer upstream from the data center. Every tonne processed generates proprietary geological data that compounds into a dataset nobody else owns.
08 / Anti-Portfolio

What we
don't back.

Procurement-Dependent Revenue
We looked at three defense-adjacent companies this year. All solid tech. All waiting 18 months for a contract renewal decision. Exit universe was three primes. We passed.
Pure Climate / ESG Without Sovereignty
Clean energy software that can be swapped for a competitor in 90 days isn't infrastructure — it's SaaS with a solar panel in the logo. We want the deal that's physically painful to unwind.
Software-Only Without Hardware Moat
If the reason a customer stays is your feature set, you lose the day a competitor ships a better roadmap. If the reason they stay is that your hardware is bolted into their facility, that's a different business.
Full CapEx Ownership
We're not the right home for a company that needs to own its grid infrastructure. That's a CapEx play requiring project finance. We back the software and control layer — the part that rides on top and compounds after deployment.
Thesis in the wild
Crusoe
Armada
Nscale
Varda
Radiant
These companies proved the model. We're finding the next ones before they run a process.
09 / Active Pipeline

Deals We're
Already Seeing.

Deal A — Pre-Seed
BESS / Grid Resilience
BMS software embedded at industrial and municipal facilities across Western Canada. Hardware ships once at near-cost. The optimization and monitoring contract renews automatically at margin. First commercial pilot live, two LOIs in pipeline.
Why we're looking
Hardware lock-in · Sovereign infra · Canadian domicile
Deal B — Seed
Modular Data Infrastructure
Modular data center units deployed directly at stranded power assets — flare gas, curtailed wind, run-of-river hydro. Bypasses the interconnection queue entirely. Two hyperscaler LOIs signed. Gross margins above 60% at current scale.
Why we're looking
Dual-use · AI bottleneck · Hyperscaler exit path
Deal C — Pre-Seed
Critical Minerals Tech
Sensor hardware and yield optimization software at a lithium extraction site in BC. Proprietary geological dataset gets more valuable with every tonne processed — no competitor can replicate it without years of deployment. Federally co-investable under Canada's critical minerals stack.
Why we're looking
Critical minerals · Hardware flywheel · Canada advantage
Companies anonymized. Illustrative examples only — Cinderwood may or may not choose to invest.
10 / The Model

Hardware Deploys.
Software Compounds.

We underwrite one question: what makes this impossible to unwind? Hardware deployment creates the beachhead. Software makes it compound. The switching cost makes it permanent. That combination trades at SaaS multiples with infrastructure defensibility — and the exit buyers are Siemens, ABB, Google, Amazon, and Tesla Energy, not just financial acquirers.

01 →
01 — Deploy Once
Hardware creates the physical beachhead. Day one, you're embedded.
02 →
02 — Renew Forever
Software contract renews automatically. The customer never re-evaluated the decision.
03 →
03 — Switch Never
Replacement requires a full re-qualification cycle — 12 to 18 months minimum in grid-critical environments. Nobody starts that process voluntarily.
How we underwrite it
Stickiness
The stickiness SaaS promised and rarely delivered.
Unit Economics
Premium multiples. Switching costs are physical, not contractual.
The Renewal
Once deployed, the software contract isn't a sales motion. It's a renewal.
11 / Spotlights

Four archetypes.
One moat.

AI Infra
The "Ayar Labs" Model
Solves a hard AI bottleneck at chip or system level — interconnects, inference silicon, thermal. Once qualified into a hyperscaler's stack, it's a 2-year process to replace. That's the moat. e.g. Ayar Labs, Untether AI
Exit → Nvidia, Broadcom, or hyperscaler vertical integration.
BESS / BMS
Embedded Sovereign BESS
BESS or BMS deployed inside a critical facility or hyperscaler campus. The optimization and monitoring software that follows becomes the stickiest contract in the building — physical removal is the only way to churn. e.g. On.Energy, Voltus
Exit → Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla Energy, Siemens, ABB.
Edge Compute / Modular Infra
Modular Data Centers at Point of Power
Compute deployed at the power source — flare gas, curtailed renewables, stranded hydro. Bypasses interconnection entirely. Armada proved this works across 80+ countries with 70%+ margins. The next wave is doing it with a Canada-first supply chain advantage.
Exit → Hyperscaler needing distributed compute, or Crusoe, CoreWeave consolidation.
Critical Minerals Tech
AI-Powered Extraction
Sensors and yield optimization software at extraction sites. Every tonne processed builds a proprietary geological dataset that competitors can't replicate without years of deployment. The hardware gets you in. The data keeps you there. e.g. KoBold Metals, Plotlogic
Exit → Tesla, Panasonic, western CATL-alternatives, major mining consolidators.
12 / Where We Operate

Closest to the Deals.
Globally-Minded.

We see Canadian critical minerals deals weeks before they hit the US network — because we're physically in the Vancouver-Calgary corridor, not flying in for a conference. Vancouver is one hour from Seattle, two from SF. We're in those rooms same-day.

We work with founders based in Paris deploying gigawatts in Mexico. The thesis — sovereign energy infrastructure — is more relevant in Tokyo, Berlin, and Sydney every quarter. We invest in US and Canadian companies. We think without borders.

We invest only in founders we know, like, and trust. That standard doesn't change based on where they're building.

"The best deals don't announce themselves.
You have to already be in the room."
<1hr
Vancouver → Seattle
~2hrs
Vancouver → San Francisco
US + CA
Primary investment geography
Global
Thesis relevance — UK, Europe, Japan, Australia
13 / Portfolio Construction

20 bets.
One thesis.

Stage Initial Check Target Own. Focus
Pre-Seed
Technical Risk
 $250k – $500k 5 – 8% Core IP, first hardware deployment. We want in before the round is oversubscribed.
Seed
Product Risk
 $250k – $500k 5 – 8% First commercial deployment live or imminent. We lead or co-lead.
14 / Fund I — 2026

Build the
Backbone

The grid is being rebuilt. The compute layer is being co-located with power. The minerals that make all of it possible are in the ground right now, waiting. We're backing the founders who figured this out first — before the category has a name and before the round has a deck.

Request Fund I Memo
Accepting commitments from accredited investors. Minimum: $250K.
Headquarters
Vancouver, BC
Web
cinderwood.vc
Email
Slide
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