founder d1 capital
Miami, FL
Joined February 2011
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In awe of your ability to roll out new super high-quality products. @karimatiyeh @eglyman
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
Today, we're launching Base Core, our own battery designed & built in Texas, and announcing our $1B Series D to bring it to homes across the country.
Three years ago, we started Base with a belief that batteries were the unlock to energy abundance. We saw battery storage as the foundation of a modern energy system, and believed we could win the market with vertical integration, technology, and relentless execution (what we now call Base Pace). So we set out to build a network of distributed batteries to deliver affordable, reliable electricity to homeowners and utilities.
While the job is far from finished, the launch of Base Core is the most meaningful step in that plan. We’ve spent the last few years learning hard lessons about building a distributed battery fleet, going from 1 install per day in June of ‘24 to 100 installs per day in June of ‘26. These lessons - how the battery is shipped, installed, used, and monitored - informed the design of Core. Now, Core will be the foundation of the company's next phase of growth.
Base Core is a first-of-its-kind home battery. At ~40 kWh it is 3x the size of most home batteries, providing up to 36 hours of backup for the average home. In the event of multi-day outage, Core is equipped with a (first of its kind) generator port - pull out a small portable generator and charge the battery back up to keep your home running as long as you need. When an outage does happen, the backup is seamless - most members won't even notice the grid went down. It's built to withstand Texas summers, Chicago Winters, and everything in between. And finally, it’s manufactured by our team in Austin, at Base Factory 1, right across the street from our HQ.
This new capital will bring Core to more homes and to accelerate our ambition beyond batteries. The round is co-led by Ribbit, Addition, Valor, and JP Morgan, with participation from new major investors D1, Sands, Coatue, Layer Global, and Energy Impact Partners. All of Base’s major existing investors are re-investing, including Thrive, Altimeter, Lightspeed, a16z, CapitalG, Trust, and more. This brings our valuation to $13B.
As we enter the most important growth period in the history of the electricity industry, our mission has not changed - advance human prosperity by delivering the world's most affordable and reliable electricity. Our strategy has not changed - technology, plus vertical integration, plus relentless execution, leads to a compounding cost advantage. What has changed is the scope of our ambition - this new capital, along with the team and capabilities we've built over the last three years, positions us to build technology across the electric stack, including what it takes to serve surging demand from AI, and to deepen our partnerships with utilities as they work to meet rising demands.
Electricity is the largest and most essential industry in the world, and it does not have a defining technology company. The company that delivers the most affordable, reliable power will be one of the largest and most impactful companies in the world. We intend to build it. If you'd like to join us, reach out.
Onwards.
basepowercompany.com/core.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
The great lie is that society is divided between rich and poor.
The great truth, as David Friedberg puts it, is makers vs takers.
Makers build, create, and deliver real value: houses, software, art, businesses, and everything that moves civilization forward.
Takers watch, criticize, analyze, and politic. They push the lie that the rich hoard unfairly so the poor must seize it… all while positioning themselves to rule the chaos.
As @friedberg tells his kids: “At the end of the day, if you made something and someone else valued it, you were a maker. That was an amazing achievement. That is a great day.”
Takers thrive on division. Makers drive progress.
Time to choose your side.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
.@altcap had some insightful takes and some arguably newer disclosures on OAI/Anthropic (he's an investor in both) worth tracking:
Anthropic's Revenue Ramp: Brad called this the fastest revenue explosion in technology history. $1B run rate end of 2024, $4B by mid-2025, $9B by end of 2025, then $30B by end of March 2026. He noted they hit their year-end target by Q1. To contextualize the monthly adds, he said Anthropic added the equivalent of Databricks plus Palantir combined in a single month. He wouldn't be shocked if Anthropic exits the year at $80-100B in revenue.
"TAM for Intelligence" Thesis: Brad's central argument is that intelligence has a near-infinite TAM, fundamentally different from any prior technology market. He stressed this isn't zero-sum between Anthropic and OpenAI. Millions of self-interested actors (consumers, enterprises, 1,000+ paying $1M+ annually) are all demanding the product simultaneously. Same Jevons paradox argument: unit cost of intelligence is plummeting because model capability is surging, which drives more consumption.
Gross Margins and "Accidental Profitability": Brad pushed back hard on the narrative that these companies are bleeding cash. His logic: the biggest cost input is compute, and Anthropic only has ~1.5-2 GW of capacity. That compute cost is relatively fixed whether revenue is $1B or $80B. So gross margins are expanding 'explosively.' He suggested the companies may hit 'accidental profitability' because they literally can't spend revenue fast enough on compute buildout. He also noted Anthropic has only 2,500 people versus Google crossing similar revenue thresholds with 120,000. Inference costs are down 90% year over year.
Anthropic's Strategic Focus as Competitive Advantage: Brad credited Anthropic's discipline in saying no. No multimodal, no video, no hardware, no chips, no building data centers. They concentrated entirely on coding and co-work as the path to AGI/ASI, executed with 2,500 people all pulling in the same direction. That focus, combined with the coding lead, is what let them come from being "counted out" a year ago to now dominating that market
OpenAI Feelin Shor-term Pain but Still Optimistic: Brad said he's a buyer of OpenAI shares today despite the negative vibes (employees leaving, strategy questions, secondary market trading below last valuation). He called it "peak OpenAI FUD." His case: it starts with great researchers and models. The upcoming Spud model (first Blackwell-trained model) is being previewed and people are telling him it's on par with Mythos.
Gross vs. Net Revenue Distraction: Brad dismissed the gross vs. net revenue debate (Anthropic reportedly presents gross, OpenAI net). He said the hyperscaler distribution commissions are single-digit percentages of total revenue. Whether you haircut Anthropic by 5-10% or gross up OpenAI, the comparison is roughly apples-to-apples and it's a distraction from the real story.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
Bill Maher fires back at Billie Eilish and leftist “kids” who “don’t know what the f*ck” America is about.
“I want to… say something about Western civilization. Kids, you don’t know what the f*ck it is.”
“They think Western means white—and white means bad. First of all, everything bad that white people did, people of color did it, too. The Japanese before World War II and during World War II. And Genghis Khan, and I could go on and on.”
“The left is very down on America, very down on the West. And it’s ironic because the West has also given us everything that makes your life good here. Don’t ask Billie Eilish or Chappell Roan about what the Western values are, because they’ll just say it’s about oppression.”
“But it’s not about oppression. It’s about rule of law. It’s about respect for minorities. It’s about democracy. It’s about scientific inquiry. These are all good things that came from the Western world. I wish that schools would teach that again.”
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
Miamiposting might be a phenomenon whose time has passed, but having just spent a few days visiting, it really does feel like a boomtown in a way that no other American city that I've spent time in over the past few years does. In some ways, it reminds me of Chinese cities.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
The best way I know to become a generalist is being a serial specialist. I know 9-10 sectors very well and I learned them one by one. Stack knowledge. Hire people to cover the things you know best and learn something new yourself.
Generalists are usually value investors. Their domain expertise is in their value discipline not their subject matter expertise. There is always a domain even if you don’t think so or don’t want to pin your investing identity to something.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
The country is 100% behind the president on fixing a global system of tariffs that has disadvantaged the country. But, business is a confidence game and confidence depends on trust.
President @realDonaldTrump has elevated the tariff issue to the most important geopolitical issue in the world, and he has gotten everyone’s attention. So far, so good.
And yes, other nations have taken advantage of the U.S. by protecting their home industries at the expense of millions of our jobs and economic growth in our country.
But, by placing massive and disproportionate tariffs on our friends and our enemies alike and thereby launching a global economic war against the whole world at once, we are in the process of destroying confidence in our country as a trading partner, as a place to do business, and as a market to invest capital.
The president has an opportunity to call a 90-day time out, negotiate and resolve unfair asymmetric tariff deals, and induce trillions of dollars of new investment in our country.
If, on the other hand, on April 9th we launch economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets and pocket books, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world that will take years and potentially decades to rehabilitate.
What CEO and what board of directors will be comfortable making large,
long-term, economic commitments in our country in the middle of an economic nuclear war?
I don’t know of one who will do so.
When markets crash, new investment stops, consumers stop spending money, and businesses have no choice but to curtail investment and fire workers.
And it is not just the big companies that will suffer. Small and medium size businesses and entrepreneurs will experience much greater pain. Almost no business can pass through an overnight massive increase in costs to their customers. And that’s true even if they have no debt, and, unfortunately, there is a massive amount of leverage in the system.
Business is a confidence game. The president is losing the confidence of business leaders around the globe. The consequences for our country and the millions of our citizens who have supported the president — in particular low-income consumers who are already under a huge amount of economic stress — are going to be severely negative. This is not what we voted for.
The President has an opportunity on Monday to call a time out and have the time to execute on fixing an unfair tariff system.
Alternatively, we are heading for a self-induced, economic nuclear winter, and we should start hunkering down.
May cooler heads prevail.
From seed to Super Bowl in under 5 years from launch. @karimatiyeh and @eglyman have built an amazing company. World class leaders and people. Excited to have @saquon join as an investor. Congrats @tryramp xitter.cf/tryramp/status/1887501… [x.com]
Congrats to the Ramp team on their five year anniversary. @eglyman and @karimatiyeh have killed it - Ramp is one of the fastest growing startups in recent history with the best engineering team. Thanks for bringing us along for the ride. 🙏🏼🙏🏼
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
A sign of wisdom is thinking in probabilities rather than certainties.
Naïve people are arrogant. They claim to know what will definitely happen, and believe they're always right.
Wise people are humble. They explore what might happen, and admit they're often wrong.
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
I'm always proud to be married to Bar (and often just can't believe I got her! this treasure!). But lately that pride overflows:
Antisemitism is never about the Jews; it’s a warning system. It’s a sign that the society itself is breaking down, that it is dying. It is a symptom of a much deeper crisis.
Watch our founder @bariweiss’s speech at @FedSoc. thefp.pub/3svlLPC
Daniel Sundheim retweeted
The Fed may or may not realize it but it has created a two-tier banking system:
1. Tier 1: Systemically Important Banks. These are the "too big to fail" biggest banks. If you have money there, it's a true deposit. You can't lose it.
2. Tier 2: Everyone Else. If you have money there, it's not a true deposit. It's an unsecured loan to that bank. You can lose it in a bank failure.
Now tell me, why would anyone use Tier 2?
