The archive · Climate & Energy · Product decision · 2022–2024
Paces bets FERC's interconnection reform on software; $11M Series A, EDF/AES clients
New York's Paces sells GIS software that cuts clean-energy site selection from months to minutes; FERC's 2023 interconnection reforms are the tailwind.
Paces
What the business is
AI-powered GIS platform that helps clean-energy developers find grid-ready sites and assess zoning, permitting and interconnection risk before building.
Starting capital：$11M Series A (July 2024) led by Navitas Capital; roughly $1.9M pre-seed two years earlier (per Latitude Media)
How it started
James McWalter co-founded Paces in 2022 in New York after watching developers lose months to slow site selection and interconnection queues. The bet: projects don't fail for lack of sun or wind but for lack of sites they can actually get through permitting and onto the grid.
What happened
In July 2024 Paces raised an $11 million Series A led by Navitas Capital with Suffolk Technologies and MCJ Collective, expanding its Permitting Predictor across the US and into new sectors like EV charging and data centers. Named clients include EDF Renewables, AES and Third Pillar Solar.
How it ended up
Still live and expanding platform coverage, customers and sectors as FERC's interconnection reform rolls out through RTO compliance processes.
Background
Paces is a New York clean-energy software company founded in 2022 by James McWalter. It sells an AI-powered GIS platform that lets developers find grid-ready parcels, then assesses zoning, permitting, interconnection and environmental risk on each one — condensing a due-diligence process the company says used to take months into minutes.
The wedge is the interconnection queue. FERC's Order No. 2023 (published September 6, 2023, effective November 6, 2023) reformed generator interconnection to clear backlogs and impose firm study deadlines, pushing developers to move faster and de-risk earlier; Paces says around 80% of renewable projects stall or fail before construction due to inefficient site origination and due diligence.
In July 2024 Paces raised an $11 million Series A led by Navitas Capital with Suffolk Technologies and MCJ Collective, with Y Combinator and other existing investors participating. Named clients include EDF Renewables, AES and Third Pillar Solar, and the funding expands Permitting Predictor nationwide and into EV charging and data centers.
What has to be true
- Interconnection queues became the industry's binding constraint, so tools that compress pre-construction work sit at the bottleneck.
- FERC's reform made speed and certainty contractual — developers who stall lose queue positions.
- GIS plus permitting data is defensible: the moat is the assembled county, state and federal dataset, not the model.
- The same platform serves renewables, EV charging and data centers, so the TAM widens with electrification.
What can be applied
When the bottleneck is process, not physics, the startup that compresses the process wins — regulation creates the urgency, but the product must attack the workflow.
Aftermath
As of July 2024 Paces is live with renewable developers (EDF Renewables, AES, Third Pillar Solar) and is using the $11M Series A to take Permitting Predictor nationwide and expand into EV charging and data center siting; no revenue or valuation disclosed, no exit.
Sources
- Clean Energy Infrastructure Software Startup Paces Raises $11 Million
- Paces Raises $11 Million in Series A Funding to Accelerate Renewable Energy Projects
- Improvements to Generator Interconnection Procedures and Agreements (FERC Order No. 2023)
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