Circular Energy

PUBLIC

Name	Circular Energy
Tagline	Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) for commercial and industrial sectors in emerging markets, offering batteries on a long-term lease.
Headquarters	London
Founded	2024
Stage	Pre-Seed
Business Model	Hardware + Software
Industry	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology	Hardware
Geography	Sub-Saharan Africa
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Varun Giridhar
Funding Label	Seed
Total Disclosed	$11.9M

Links

PUBLIC

• Website: https://thecircularenergy.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/circular-energy-uk/

Executive Summary

PUBLIC

Circular Energy is a pre-seed startup aiming to deploy Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) for commercial and industrial customers in emerging markets, a model that merits investor attention for its attempt to solve a critical infrastructure gap through a capital-light, circular-economy approach [thecircularenergy.com]. The company, founded in 2024, proposes to finance, install, and manage battery storage systems on a long-term lease, eliminating upfront capital expenditure for clients like telecom tower operators who face unreliable grid power and high diesel costs [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. Its core product is an opex-based service agreement spanning 7 to 15 years, which includes ongoing monitoring, maintenance, and end-of-life battery refurbishment or repurposing [thecircularenergy.com]. The founding team is led by Varun Giridhar, whose public profile includes technical research in robotics and machine learning, though his direct experience in energy infrastructure or African/Asian markets is not detailed in available sources [LinkedIn, 2026]. The company has secured approximately $11.9 million in seed funding, though the source of this capital and the lead investor are not publicly disclosed [PitchBook, 2026]. Over the next 12-18 months, the key indicators to monitor will be the announcement of initial pilot deployments with named customers, the formation of strategic partnerships for battery supply and logistics, and any further clarity on the capitalization and investor syndicate behind its seed round.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core product claims are sourced from the company's website and a research brief; funding figure is from a single database; founder identity is corroborated but background is limited.

Taxonomy Snapshot

Axis	Value
Stage	Pre-Seed
Business Model	Hardware + Software
Industry / Vertical	Cleantech / Climatetech
Technology Type	Hardware
Geography	Sub-Saharan Africa
Growth Profile	Venture Scale
Founding Team	Varun Giridhar
Funding	Seed (total disclosed ~$11,900,000)

Company Overview

PUBLIC

Circular Energy is a London-based venture founded in 2024, positioning itself in the cleantech sector with a Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) model aimed at commercial and industrial customers in emerging markets [thecircularenergy.com]. The company's public narrative begins with its founding year and a focus on removing upfront capital expenditure for battery storage, framing its service as a long-term operational expense for clients in regions with unreliable grid power [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Varun Giridhar is identified as the founder and managing director across several professional databases, though a detailed founding story or co-founder team is not publicly documented [LinkedIn, retrieved 2026] [RocketReach]. The company's key milestones to date are limited to its establishment and the articulation of its business model; no public announcements regarding first deployments, strategic partnerships, or regulatory approvals have been made.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Core company details are sourced from its website and a founder's LinkedIn profile; founding narrative and team composition lack independent corroboration.

Product and Technology

MIXED

The core proposition is a managed energy storage service designed to circumvent the capital barriers and operational headaches common in its target markets. Circular Energy's website positions its offering as a full-stack Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) solution, where the company finances, procures, imports, commissions, monitors, maintains, and optimizes battery performance for commercial and industrial customers with no upfront costs [thecircularenergy.com]. This operational model shifts the burden from customer capital expenditure to a predictable monthly service fee, structured over a 7 to 15 year contract [thecircularenergy.com]. The pitch is one of cost savings and operational simplicity, directly targeting the high expense and logistical complexity of diesel generators and self-managed battery systems in regions with unreliable grids [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Beyond the lease, the service includes a lifecycle management component framed as a circular economy contribution. The company claims to handle battery refurbishment, reconditioning, and repurposing, aiming to extract maximum value from the physical assets over their lifespan [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. This suggests a backend operation focused on extending asset utility and managing end-of-life logistics, though no technical details on these processes are publicly available. The target customer segments are explicitly telecommunications, commercial, and industrial sectors in Asia and Africa [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Product claims are sourced directly from the company website and a secondary research brief; no independent technical reviews or customer deployment details are available.

Market Research

MIXED

The commercial and industrial energy storage market in emerging economies is not a niche experiment but a foundational requirement for economic stability, a point underscored by the persistent gap between grid capacity and industrial demand growth across Asia and Africa. While direct third-party sizing for Circular Energy's specific Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) segment in these regions is not publicly available, the underlying market forces are well-documented and severe. The primary driver is grid unreliability, which forces businesses to rely on expensive and polluting diesel generators for backup power. A shift to battery storage, therefore, is not merely an efficiency play but a direct cost-saving and operational necessity for sectors like telecommunications and manufacturing, where power interruptions translate directly into lost revenue [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Adjacent markets provide a sense of scale. The global market for commercial and industrial battery energy storage systems (BESS) was valued at approximately $10.2 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of over 20% through the decade, with Asia-Pacific representing the fastest-growing region [ScienceDirect]. Within this, the African microgrid and distributed energy market, which often incorporates storage, is forecast to see significant investment, though from a smaller base. The substitute market,diesel generation,remains entrenched due to its perceived reliability and low upfront cost, but it creates a substantial total cost of ownership wedge that battery-as-a-service models aim to exploit by converting a volatile fuel expense into a predictable monthly service fee.

Regulatory and macro forces are coalescing to create tailwinds. Many governments in target markets have net-zero commitments that include reducing diesel dependency, creating potential for subsidies or favorable tariffs for clean backup power. Furthermore, the global push for a circular economy, particularly around managing the lifecycle of lithium-ion batteries, provides a secondary narrative layer that aligns with international development and climate finance priorities [ScienceDirect]. However, these are countered by significant macro risks, including currency volatility, complex import regulations for battery hardware, and the political instability that can affect long-term infrastructure contracts.

Metric	Value
Global C&I BESS Market 2023	10.2 $B
Projected CAGR (2024-2033)	20 %

The projected growth rate for the broader commercial and industrial storage sector indicates a market in rapid expansion, though Circular Energy's success hinges on capturing a slice of this growth in specific, often challenging, geographies. The absence of a cited, granular TAM for its operational model is a standard data gap for early-stage ventures in emerging markets, making competitive execution and local partnership more critical than top-down market size.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Market sizing is drawn from analogous, broader industry reports; specific BaaS TAM for target regions is not independently verified.

Competitive Landscape

MIXED

Circular Energy's competitive position is defined by its specific operational model and geography, rather than by a crowded field of direct, named rivals. The company is attempting to carve out a defensible niche by combining a pure opex financial model with full lifecycle management for battery storage, specifically targeting commercial and industrial customers in regions with unreliable grid infrastructure [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Given the absence of named, direct competitors in the structured research, a comparison table is omitted. The competitive analysis instead maps the broader landscape of alternatives available to a telecom tower operator or industrial facility in Sub-Saharan Africa or Asia.

• Incumbent Substitutes. The primary competition is not from other BaaS startups, but from the status quo: direct purchase of diesel generators and lead-acid batteries, or capital expenditure on new lithium-ion systems. These incumbent solutions are deeply entrenched, with established supply chains and local maintenance networks. Their advantage is familiarity and immediate availability; their disadvantage is the significant upfront capital and operational burden Circular Energy aims to eliminate.
• Adjacent Challengers. Several adjacent business models operate in the same energy access space but attack different parts of the problem. These include pure-play solar leasing companies, microgrid developers, and energy service companies (ESCOs) that may bundle generation with storage. Their competitive threat is that they could expand their offerings to include storage-as-a-service, leveraging existing customer relationships and local presence.
• Potential Future Direct Competitors. The most significant long-term competition may come from large, integrated battery manufacturers or global energy majors. Companies like BYD, Tesla, or Shell could theoretically launch a similar BaaS offering, using their scale to secure cheaper batteries and their balance sheets to offer more attractive financing. To date, these players have largely focused on selling hardware or developing utility-scale projects in more mature markets.

Circular Energy's stated edge today rests on two intertwined pillars: its singular focus on the opex model for storage, and its commitment to circular economy principles like refurbishment and repurposing [thecircularenergy.com]. This is a software-enabled, service-heavy approach distinct from a pure hardware sale. The durability of this edge is questionable without rapid execution. It is perishable if a larger player with deeper pockets and a local footprint decides to replicate the model, or if customers remain skeptical of a new, unproven vendor for a critical piece of infrastructure.

The company's most significant exposure is its lack of visible distribution and partnerships. Success in these emerging markets is often less about technology and more about relationships, trust, and the ability to navigate local logistics and regulations. A competitor that already sells power equipment or telecommunications infrastructure into these regions could easily bundle a storage solution, bypassing Circular Energy entirely. The company's website and LinkedIn presence show no announced channel partners or local agents, a gap that leaves it vulnerable [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

Over the next 18 months, the most plausible competitive scenario is one of fragmentation and niche formation. A 'winner' in this scenario would be a company that successfully signs and deploys a flagship contract with a regional telecom operator, using that case study to secure further financing and attract local partners. A 'loser' would be a company that fails to move beyond the conceptual stage, remaining a website and a LinkedIn profile while larger, better-capitalized entities begin to experiment with similar opex models for storage. The verdict in the Analyst Notes will likely turn on which path Circular Energy is able to take.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Competitive mapping is inferred from the company's stated model and the known structure of its target markets; no direct competitor profiles are publicly cited.

Opportunity

PUBLIC

The prize for Circular Energy is the transformation of energy access for commercial and industrial operators across Africa and Asia, a market where unreliable power currently imposes a multi-billion dollar annual tax on productivity.

The headline opportunity is to become the default, asset-light energy storage infrastructure for mobile network operators and industrial facilities in its target regions. This outcome is reachable because the company's core model directly attacks the primary constraint in these markets: high upfront capital expenditure. By offering a pure operational expense model, Circular Energy aligns its economics with customers who have predictable operational budgets but limited access to large-scale project financing [thecircularenergy.com]. If it can prove the reliability and cost savings of its Battery-as-a-Service (BaaS) offering, it could capture a foundational role in the energy transition for telecom towers and factories, a position with significant long-term recurring revenue and high customer switching costs.

Growth could follow several concrete, named paths.

Scenario	What happens	Catalyst	Why it's plausible
Anchor Tenant	Secures a multi-year, multi-site contract with a pan-African telecom tower operator, using that reference to win similar deals with other operators across the continent.	A partnership with a major tower company like IHS Towers or Helios Towers, announced as a pilot program.	Telecom operators are actively seeking to reduce diesel dependency and operational complexity; outsourcing battery management to a specialist is a logical step [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].
Regulatory Tailwind	A national government or regional bloc mandates a percentage of backup power to come from renewable sources with storage, creating a surge in demand for BaaS models.	Policy announcement in a key market like Nigeria or Kenya promoting grid stability and clean energy for industrial users.	Similar mandates have driven solar adoption; extending them to storage for reliability is a natural progression in energy policy [ScienceDirect].
Vertical Integration	Leverages its battery lifecycle management to source and refurbish second-life electric vehicle batteries, dramatically lowering its input costs and creating a unique supply chain advantage.	A strategic partnership with an EV manufacturer or fleet operator for end-of-first-life battery packs.	The circular economy focus is central to the company's stated mission, and second-life batteries are a growing resource stream needing specialized management [thecircularenergy.com].

Compounding for Circular Energy would manifest as a classic operational flywheel. Each new deployment adds to the company's managed battery fleet, generating more performance data. This data improves its asset management algorithms, leading to better predictive maintenance, longer battery life, and lower service costs. Lower costs improve unit economics, allowing the company to offer more competitive monthly fees, which in turn wins more customers and further grows the fleet. Evidence that this flywheel is a core part of the plan is present in the company's emphasis on "advanced battery asset management solutions" and lifecycle management, including refurbishment and repurposing [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].

The size of the win, should the Anchor Tenant scenario play out, can be framed by looking at a credible comparable. The African telecom tower market is served by large, publicly traded companies. For example, IHS Towers, which operates over 40,000 towers across Africa, reported revenue of approximately $2.1 billion for 2023 [IHS Towers, 2024]. If Circular Energy's BaaS model were to become a standard component of tower power infrastructure across a meaningful portion of this market, the recurring service fees could support a venture-scale outcome. A conservative scenario might see the company capturing a single-digit percentage of this serviceable market, representing a platform worth hundreds of millions in enterprise value. This is a scenario-based illustration, not a forecast.

Data Accuracy: YELLOW -- Opportunity framing relies on the company's stated model and market context; specific growth catalysts and comparables are inferred from industry dynamics rather than direct company confirmation.

Sources

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1. [thecircularenergy.com] thecircularenergy | https://thecircularenergy.com/

2. [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief] Circular Energy Research Brief |

3. [LinkedIn, 2026] Varun Giridhar - Circular Energy | https://www.linkedin.com/in/varungiridhar/

4. [RocketReach] Varun Giridhar Email & Phone Number | Circular Energy Founder and Managing Director Contact Information | https://rocketreach.co/varun-giridhar-email_12735729

5. [PitchBook, 2026] Circular Energy 2026 Company Profile: Valuation, Funding & Investors | https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/57428-56

6. [ScienceDirect] Circular Economy in the Renewable Energy Sector: A Review of Growth Trends, Gaps and Future Directions | https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2772427125000361