Investing in Vitality Options for the Information Middle Increase

The race to guide in terms of synthetic intelligence (AI) is turning into extra about securing the ability essential for knowledge facilities and different AI infrastructure. As POWER’s current Information Middle POWER eXchange occasion in Denver, Colorado, confirmed, demand for power from the AI sector is impacting a number of gasoline sorts, each thermal and renewable. Pure fuel has emerged as a number one possibility to offer baseload energy, as a buildout of gas-fired energy vegetation already is underway. Andrejka Bernatova is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dynamix Company III, and managing accomplice of Dynamix Capital Companions, a gaggle that’s working to accomplice with confirmed, market-leading corporations in power, energy, and digital belongings. She works inside the power trade as each an operator and investor. Bernatova has helped increase greater than $35 billion throughout power and infrastructure. Bernatova led a SPAC (Particular Function Acquisition Firm) full-cycle with ESGEN, which merged with Florida’s largest photo voltaic installer to type Zeo Vitality Corp. in 2024. In 2025, one other SPAC she leads introduced a enterprise mixture with The Ether Machine, an institutional-grade Ethereum funding car. Bernatova additionally just lately accomplished the preliminary public providing for Dynamix Company III, pursuing alternatives in power, energy, and the digital belongings worth chain.

Andrejka Bernatova

Bernatova is an completed athlete who has accomplished the Marathon des Sables, a ~200-mile ultra-marathon race throughout the Sahara Desert. She additionally biked greater than 600 miles throughout Tibet and Nepal to the Mount Everest Base Camp. She has volunteered in orphanages and development tasks in Kenya, Chile, Nepal, and Egypt. Bernatova has lived, labored, and studied throughout 5 continents, and speaks 5 languages. Bernatova just lately supplied POWER with perception into her firm’s enterprise. and in addition mentioned Dynamix’s perception that the power and infrastructure trade is within the early phases of a decades-long transition to a low-carbon, sustainable future. POWER: What are the targets for Dynamix in terms of North American power and infrastructure?Bernatova: Our focus may be very pragmatic. For Dynamix Capital Companions, the precedence is belongings that sit on the intersection of energy, power safety, and scale, significantly era and infrastructure that may assist the following wave of demand pushed by AI, knowledge facilities, and grid resiliency. We’re focusing on cash-flowing, industrial-scale platforms that may be a part of the answer over the following 5 to 10 years. We’re at present within the technique of finishing the deSPAC for our most up-to-date enterprise mixture with The Ether Machine, introduced this previous summer time. We view digital belongings via the identical lens as power and infrastructure, and Ethereum is an energy-efficient main blockchain. This aligns straight with our give attention to scalable infrastructure that improves effectivity slightly than exacerbating pressure, making the transaction a pure extension of our core focus. (Editor’s observe: De-SPAC refers to a enterprise deal the place a personal firm goes public by merging with a SPAC.)POWER: You’ve talked about “Disruptive Decarbonization.” What does that imply?Bernatova: Disruptive decarbonization is about decreasing emissions in a approach that truly works inside real-world constraints. The quickest technique to decarbonize at scale as we speak isn’t by ready for excellent applied sciences, however by changing dirtier fuels with cleaner ones that exist already and will be deployed instantly, significantly pure fuel. When you can reduce emissions by 50-60% as we speak slightly than promise 100% discount in 10 years, that’s true affect. Disruption comes from pragmatism, not from chasing headlines. POWER: How has your earlier expertise as an operator and firm builder at PennTex Midstream, Enchanted Rock, and Goodnight Midstream helped with the power offers you’re employed on as we speak?Bernatova: Being an operator modifications the way you see danger. At PennTex, Enchanted Rock, and Goodnight, I used to be answerable for execution, contracts, capital allocation and capital elevating, and working via cycles, which forces self-discipline. It teaches you the place fashions break, the place assumptions fail, and the place worth is definitely created. Immediately, after we take a look at offers, we focus closely on operational actuality: Can this be constructed? Does this enterprise have a sustainable business and buyer spine? Can it’s financed? Can it survive volatility? Does it generate money move? That mindset is invaluable. POWER: What are the first components you take into account when assessing a possible deal for power infrastructure?Bernatova: First, money move visibility and contract construction, as a result of, with out that, nothing else issues. Second, scalability, or whether or not the asset grows alongside demand with out counting on speculative expertise shifts. Third, resiliency and relevance to the grid, as a result of belongings that enhance reliability will at all times matter. And eventually, capital construction. Too many offers fail as a result of they’re constructed on overly engineered or poisonous financing. We’re extraordinarily disciplined about stability sheets and alignment from day one. POWER: What ought to startup power corporations be as they devise methods for his or her enterprise in as we speak’s extremely aggressive market?Bernatova: They should give attention to commercialization and profitability a lot earlier. Vitality isn’t software program; it’s large-scale infrastructure and asset deployment. You can not depend on perpetual funding rounds or subsidies. Startups should be brutally trustworthy about whether or not their expertise can scale economically and generate EBITDA (Earnings Earlier than Curiosity, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization). If your corporation solely works underneath excellent regulatory circumstances or steady authorities assist, it’s not a enterprise. The businesses that survive would be the ones that perceive value, execution, and buyer demand from the outset. POWER: You’ve held funding roles at among the world’s largest banks, together with Credit score Suisse and Morgan Stanley, and also you’ve additionally labored at The Blackstone Group. What have been an important classes you’ve discovered from that have, significantly because it pertains to structuring power offers?Bernatova: Construction issues as a lot because the asset itself. I’ve discovered that dangerous capital can destroy enterprise. The perfect offers are easy, aligned, and constructed for sturdiness, slightly than optimized for short-term monetary engineering. Vitality belongings dwell via cycles, so your capital construction has to outlive these cycles. Alignment between sponsors, administration, and traders is important. If incentives are misaligned in the beginning, the deal is already damaged. POWER: How has your expertise as an ultra-marathoner impacted your profession? Does the self-discipline required to excel in that sport translate to your work in enterprise?Bernatova: Extremely-marathons educate you the best way to function underneath sustained stress, handle power, make choices when circumstances are removed from ultimate, and be capable to dwell via intervals of long-term ache. Enterprise, particularly on this trade, isn’t a dash. It’s about endurance, self-discipline, and staying rational when others panic. You study to respect course of, put together for adversity, and hold transferring ahead even when progress is incremental. That mindset interprets on to how I strategy investing and constructing corporations. —Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.