Riding Unicorns: Venture Capital | Entrepreneurship | Technology
00:00:00 · James Pringle
[00:00:00] S0: This episode is sponsored by Seapoint, the business account built for startups. If you're a startup founder fed up with finance admin, you need Seapoint. Seapoint is different to neobanks because it connects all your bank accounts and your Stripe account to see your cash position, burn, and runway instantly. It automates bookkeeping by pulling invoices and receipts from your whole team's inboxes, so you just sync the whole lot to zero and pay outstanding bills with a click. Plus, it has a 3.51% yield on treasury and real human customer support. Find out more at seapoint.co. That's seaprint.co. Use code unicorn for a free month. Seapoint offers money market funds managed by BlackRock. Rate recorded at 10/01/2026. Rates are variable and subject to change. Capital at risk. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Riding Unicorns. Today, we're joined by Alan Chang, founder and CEO of Fuze Energy. Alan first came on the show back in January 2023 when the business was very early in its journey focused on building a full stack energy company. Fast forward to now, FUSE has raised lots of money, but recently a 70,000,000 series b at 5,000,000,000 valuation. And Alan recently posted that the next big milestone was a billion of ARR, which is a great milestone to be heading towards. So, Alan, thanks for joining us. Welcome back to the show. It's great to have you back on riding unicorns. I'd love to just sort of reflect a little bit on how the last three years have been. It's obviously been great success from the outside looking in. But what what were you right about all along? And what were some of the things that you've had to learn and adapt through those years?
00:01:35 · Alan Chang, Hector Mason
[00:01:35] S1: I think one thing that's stayed true from beginning is our mission remains the same, right? To lower cost of energy, to increase energy per capita. So all of this remains true. So I'd say one thing that has changed a lot is how we get there. So I think we probably underestimate the complexity of the whole industry, right? There is long moving parts. There are many things happening at the same time. It's truly a very, very complex system. And I don't think there's a single person that knows how everything works. So yeah, basically I think the things we need to do to achieve the goal needs to be much more than we expected. So one of the key problems that we face, right, every single day is basically working with the grid. So the grid has huge timelines, so anywhere from fifteen to twenty years of delay to connect to the grid. And, you know, it's just no way to run a business, right? It just takes way too long. And actually this problem persists not just for energy, but also in any industry that consumes energy, right? So whether it's data centers or warehouses or skyscrapers and whatnot. So yes, so to truly solve this problem, actually have to become the grid. And the only way you can become the grid is to buy your way in. So we're actually in the middle of buying our first grid, and we're selling very small. But the idea is we work our way up to a much larger grid. [00:02:52] S2: Tell us what that means to buy a grid.
00:02:52 · Hector Mason, Alan Chang
[00:02:52] S2: Tell us what that means to buy a grid. [00:02:54] S1: It's no different to buying any other company, except you're a regulator monopoly. I think the way to describe it is like, you know, you're basically buying a poorly run coffee shop, but there's a maybe a 10 block queue to your coffee shop. And if you can run your coffee shop much better, much more efficient, you know, that's how you can increase revenue off your coffee shop and make a lot of people happy. Right? [00:03:15] S2: And last time last time we spoke, Alan, we talked about some of the benefits of being an outsider to the industry because you you obviously had a career at Revolut before starting Fuse and had a huge amount of success there. But in the last few years since since we spoke, you have achieved hundreds of millions of revenue. You've raised a 5,000,000,000 valuation. Like, reflecting now on those pros and cons of being an outsider, what would you say about them?
00:03:15 · Hector Mason, Alan Chang
[00:03:15] S2: And last time last time we spoke, Alan, we talked about some of the benefits of being an outsider to the industry because you you obviously had a career at Revolut before starting Fuse and had a huge amount of success there. But in the last few years since since we spoke, you have achieved hundreds of millions of revenue. You've raised a 5,000,000,000 valuation. Like, reflecting now on those pros and cons of being an outsider, what would you say about them? [00:03:40] S1: I wouldn't say the pros and cons. Like, I don't think actually there's lot of pros of being an outsider. Right? However, if I was an insider, I would have tried to do something about it much earlier. But I think obviously there are a lot of cons being outsider, right? You know, you have to learn something. You have to do something you've never done before. But I'll say like the key thing is you can assemble a very, good team that wouldn't have otherwise existed in the industry. Because if you think about what top people care about, right? They care about having a lot of responsibilities, they care about making an impact, they care about working with other great people, and obviously they care about the comp, right? Which I would say traditional energy companies don't really provide any of the above. So I'll say we're in a very unique position where Fuze can offer all four. So I think that's really our only, you know, secret weapon.
00:03:40 · Alan Chang, Hector Mason
[00:03:40] S1: I wouldn't say the pros and cons. Like, I don't think actually there's lot of pros of being an outsider. Right? However, if I was an insider, I would have tried to do something about it much earlier. But I think obviously there are a lot of cons being outsider, right? You know, you have to learn something. You have to do something you've never done before. But I'll say like the key thing is you can assemble a very, good team that wouldn't have otherwise existed in the industry. Because if you think about what top people care about, right? They care about having a lot of responsibilities, they care about making an impact, they care about working with other great people, and obviously they care about the comp, right? Which I would say traditional energy companies don't really provide any of the above. So I'll say we're in a very unique position where Fuze can offer all four. So I think that's really our only, you know, secret weapon. [00:04:27] S2: I mean, like, for years, Octopus have been kind of known, at least in The UK, as the disruptor energy brand. And I've heard they're scared of Fuze. They're worried. Like, should they be worried? And and why why haven't they innovated yet in the
00:04:27 · Hector Mason, Alan Chang
[00:04:27] S2: I mean, like, for years, Octopus have been kind of known, at least in The UK, as the disruptor energy brand. And I've heard they're scared of Fuze. They're worried. Like, should they be worried? And and why why haven't they innovated yet in the [00:04:42] S1: same way as you have? Well, I'm not gonna speak foul of anyone specific in the industry. I think regardless of what you're building, as long as you're building, you have our respect. But one thing I would say is like if we thought the energy industry was in a good state, we wouldn't start FUSE in the first place. Energy ultimately is like a super complex domain. And it depends on how much of that domain you want to engage, right? Like for example, you can ignore a 95% domain and get by. And I'll argue that's actually what a lot of energy companies are doing. So if you want to get to be truly, truly great, you have to go super deep and understand all the complexity and and willing to actually go go super deep, right, and own the whole thing. Otherwise, I I don't think it's possible to to achieve the mission.