Factor co-founder Jessica Venning Bryan on giving energy the respect it deserves
We can't unlock the energy future we're building without clearing some roadblocks.
As I’ve said many times on Caffeine, we don’t get to build the future we’re all so excited about if we don’t build the energy infrastructure systems required to power that future. One startup doing the hard mahi of making that possible is Factor, which recently secured $3 million of investment to accelerate the development of its pricing automation platform for energy companies globally.
Factor is developing a suite of plug-and-play tools that automate what has traditionally been a clunky, spreadsheet-based pricing process for energy retailers, distribution networks, and other energy tech companies. The company's AI-powered solution addresses a critical gap in the energy sector, where 70% of electricity is consumed by industry with complex needs, but where pricing management remains largely manual and inefficient.
I recently had a great chat with Factor co-founder Jessica Venning Bryan about how energy is upstream of so many other problems, why energy is ‘sexy’ and we should give it the respect it deserves.
Answers have been edited for clarity and length
Could you provide the founding story for Factor and the problem you identified, including any "lightbulb moments", forgive the pun, that led to the solution?
Simon and I have been working together for eleven years, starting as part of the founding team at Flick Electric in 2014. He was the founding CTO and I was the founding CMO. Neither of us had worked in energy before, but we both became really passionate about the sector because it’s big, major, technical, complicated, and everything depends on it. It’s also changing astronomically. We were particularly drawn to the idea of price signaling and how price influences behavior. At Flick, we built a retail model that passed market price signals directly to the consumer and unbundled other supply costs, making everything visible. In hindsight, it was probably too early, as the term "energy transition" wasn't even common then.
We learned a lot about how prices work, how people respond, and the complexity of building software to enable that. Simon’s background in software development and data science meant he approached things from a data perspective, which was a huge advantage as it allowed us to think in abstract terms.
After selling Flick Electric, Simon and I worked on software for Meridian Energy in the commercial and industrial billing space. We applied our ideas of abstraction and data to the challenge of commercial energy billing, which is very disaggregated and complex.
Last year, after speaking with many utilities, we realized they were still struggling with good operating software for the new energy economy. I left Meridian in the middle of last year, and we immediately conducted a deep market exercise, speaking to 30 utilities in 15 markets. We repeatedly heard that it’s too hard with current tools to translate the increasingly complex world of energy supply—where energy comes from, how it moves, its destination, government charges, and various technologies—into products customers can actually buy. For example, a customer with an EV just wants an EV product, but the complexity behind it is immense.
This difficulty is compounded by the need for scalability. When EVs were niche, and you had ten EV customers a year, you could muddle through with spreadsheets. But now, if McDonald's in the UK wants to install EV stations at 4,500 sites, it's an entirely different problem. We recognized this as essentially a data problem, and given our backgrounds in data science, software engineering, and the industry, we knew how to solve it. We already had a clear idea of how to approach it.
We started building the product over the summer, raised money, and took it to Europe in June. The reaction has been incredible, far exceeding our expectations. We knew we had a good product and understood the problem, but we were prepared for criticism. Instead, everyone loved it, asking when they could implement it. We're now working with a large utility in Greece and have our first signed customer in Australia. It’s been a crazy six months, but as Simon and I reflected to our board, it's actually the culmination of ten years of work and learning. We made mistakes along the way, but it’s great to go at it again, applying everything we’ve learned. It’s also special that everyone working with us has done so before—it’s a testament to the journey.
You mentioned the challenges of an old system grappling with new demands. Can you elaborate on the core problem, is it that the energy operating system we use is outdated for the kind of hardware we we are trying to plug into it?
Yes, that's a good way to put it. We've largely agreed on the direction of travel – we want to electrify everything, and this is where we're going. But we haven't updated the downstream systems and infrastructure to actually enable it. While we have plenty of "sexy" problems to solve, like where power comes from, building enough renewable energy, designing nuclear fusion, none of that can happen without this foundational infrastructure layer beneath it. Factor is focused on solving for that foundational, albeit ‘boring,’ and "deeply operational" layer. We won't get to build the nuclear fusion lab in Wellington if we can't figure out how to actually put it on the grid and transact it.
You drew a comparison between Factor and Stripe. Could you expand on that analogy and explain how it relates to the energy sector?
I know the comparison to Stripe is well-worn, but it's apt. When Stripe launched, they saw e-commerce coming but recognized a missing payments infrastructure for the internet. They started by building a solution for online fund exchange, then expanded to a whole suite of products across the payment chain. Finally, they built an extra layer specifically for software developers, making it possible for anyone to pick up their tools and implement them, establishing themselves as the payments infrastructure for the internet.
That's where I see energy going. We'll have many different parties making, moving, selling, and using energy. Even with abundant, cheap energy from nuclear fusion, it still needs to be transacted. Someone still has to buy it, sell it, and account for its usage. Most people find this "boring," including some investors, but I find it really exciting because it’s foundational. We currently lack that commercialization layer for the new energy economy. While some individual companies are doing interesting things, all the complex number-crunching to determine the value of a unit of energy—when and where it's used, based on its origin—is incredibly difficult to do at the micro level and, more importantly, at scale. That's our space. You need to get the micro right for it to scale across the entire ecosystem.
To offer another metaphor, it's like we've all decided to race in Formula One, but the utilities are showing up with their family cars—dinged up, needing an oil change, just about getting them to the supermarket. That family car is never going to compete in Formula One. The energy transition is Formula One, and the systems utilities are currently using are those family vehicles; they are totally incompatible.
What are the consequences of this problem of outdated energy infrastructure and systems not being solved? How does it impact everyday consumers and companies?
The main consequence is a lack of product choice. For a long time, I believed in retailer choice, thinking that more options for consumers would improve the market. However, I've completely changed my view; it's not just about retailer choice, but about product choice. Customers need a range of products that reflect their desire to either simply engage with the system or fully participate in it. This is about creating a participatory energy economy.
Currently, the technology utilities use limits them to offering only simple products, largely because they can't handle complex data tasks at scale. While some argue consumers only want simple products, that’s not true for everyone, and certainly not for commercial customers. The inability to solve this problem means we don't fully enact this participatory energy economy. As a result, we lack the crucial incentives needed to encourage people and, more importantly, companies to invest in decarbonization.
For example, if a company can't get a feed-in tariff for their solar that accurately reflects the time of day they use energy at their paper mill, why would they invest in solar? It becomes an irrational economic decision. Product choice and tariff design allow the retailer and customer to understand the true value of energy. They can see when energy is expensive due to demand or distance from generation, or if they’ve invested in solar panels and batteries, they can get a great off-peak rate for surplus energy. When the economics of making, moving, and selling electricity make sense to all participants—not just the utility but the end-user—the incentives shift, driving investment.
We’ve seen this in other markets. Investment in assets isn't the only benefit; there are many fiscal mechanisms that can encourage reduced energy consumption during peak times, which is vital for network resilience and decarbonization of carbon-intensive assets. We think about EVs for consumers, but in the commercial space, it's things like industrial process heat. Companies like Fonterra have electrified their milk dryers, and fiscal incentives are essential for such initiatives.
How does Factor specifically improve the lives of everyday consumers who aren't deeply involved in the energy sector?
Recently the Electricity Authority in New Zealand announced changes requiring utilities to provide more "value-reflective" feed-in tariffs for solar. This means if you're a solar customer in New Zealand, you're on track to get better prices for the energy you feed back into the grid, which is fantastic. However, utilities will remain bound by technical constraints in implementing this if they don't have a solution like Factor. They might come up with something that partially meets the Authority's intent, but with Factor, they could give you a true market price for the exact time you discharge that energy. That's the difference.
Essentially, if we want cheaper, abundant energy, Factor paves the way by eliminating a significant technical choke point. It's like clearing a clogged faucet; it removes the technical barrier that prevents utilities from offering more dynamic and value-reflective energy products.
What is the North Star that guides Factor, and how do you measure success?
The North Star for us is an energy system where energy is truly valued for what it is worth, considering where and when it is used. The days of energy being a mere commodity should be gone. Every bit of energy we use consumes some natural resource—whether it's water, sun, or wind—and moving it impacts the environment. I truly believe that if we valued energy for what it is, rather than just as a commodity, we would use it more judiciously. We would invest more in cleaner production, think more about efficiency, and consider how to share it with those who can't afford it. That sense of valuing every unit of energy for what it is and what it enables is what personally guides me.
In terms of how that translates to the product and how we measure success, it’s about ambition. How far can we take this product, and how many applications can it have? We started by working with utilities, but as the energy economy evolves, there will be many, many more participants in the system. I love the idea that anyone would be able to "factor" their energy to figure out the value of the energy they have to use, sell, or buy, based on what they need it for, where they need it, and where it came from. It's about having respect for energy. As you said at the start, nothing happens without it, and it is precious. It's called power for a reason; it's everything.
I was at Parliament recently discussing New Zealand's digital infrastructure, and everyone was talking about fintech and finance. I asked one of the panelists why nobody was talking about energy, and she just looked at me and said, "Because it's not sexy." I thought, "Let me tell you, lady, it is!"