{"id":400655,"date":"2026-08-07T22:54:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/400655\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:54:08","slug":"austin-approves-295m-bond-election-for-parks-and-libraries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/400655\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin approves $295M bond election for parks and libraries"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Austin company supplying residential batteries designed to strengthen the power grid is surging after a large round of funding, including a contribution by retired Houston Texans legend J.J. Watt. Base Power<\/a> raised $1 billion in a Series D round, bringing the startup\u2019s valuation to $13 billion.<\/p>\n

Base Power, which provides residential battery backup systems that automatically turn on during outages and sells electricity to homeowners, says the funding will go toward hiring more people and expanding nationally. <\/p>\n

In conjunction with the funding announcement, the startup launched Base Core, a home battery designed to support the power grid. Today, Base Core is available to homeowners in certain parts of Texas and Illinois, including the Austin and Houston areas. <\/p>\n

This is Watts\u2019 first investment in the energy sector.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like companies that solve real problems, and Base is lowering power bills, protecting families, and building the whole thing themselves right here in Texas,\u201d Watt said in a company news release.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat impressed me wasn\u2019t just how fast they\u2019ve grown,\u201d he adds. \u201cIt\u2019s that they\u2019ve already saved Texans millions on their power bills and kept thousands of homes running when the lights went out. That\u2019s why I invested.\u201d<\/p>\n

Base Power is building a distributed network of residential batteries that\u2019s designed to strengthen the grid and lower electrical bills. The startup now powers more than 30,000 homes in Texas, including the Houston area, and recently expanded to Illinois.<\/p>\n

Base Power\u2019s $1 billion round lifted its valuation to $13 billion. Since being founded in 2023, the startup has raised more than $2.5 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cJJ is a legend in this state, and he earned that as much for how he shows up off the field as for what he did on it,\u201d says Zach Dell, co-founder and CEO of Base Power. “He spent a full day with us asking every hard question he could think of, and then he switched to Base himself. We\u2019re glad to have him partnering with us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zach Dell is the only son of Austin billionaire Michael Dell, chairman and CEO of Round Rock-based Dell Technologies. Michael Dell grew up in Bellaire.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

This story is excerpted from two articles (here<\/a> and here<\/a>) by our sister site EnergyCapitalHTX.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An Austin company supplying residential batteries designed to strengthen the power grid is surging after a large round…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400656,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,11646,666,4011,6534,2051],"class_list":["post-400655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-civic-issues","tag-funding","tag-libraries","tag-parks","tag-taxes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=400655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}