Modo Energy are building a global data analytics platform for renewable energy assets. Their all-in-one platform initially targets investors, developers, owners and operators of battery energy storage assets, offering long-term forecasts, asset benchmarking, trusted price indices, real-time market screens and an enterprise-grade data API.
After 18 months of rapid growth and the signing of their first US customer, we are thrilled to be doubling down by supporting Modo’s $15m Series A led by our friends at MMC.
Since we backed Modo’s seed round it’s been impressive to watch how quickly the business has launched new products and markets, and transformed itself into a disruptive media brand setting the narrative of its industry.
Modo encapsulates many of the qualities I believe will be required for the next generation of SaaS companies to succeed. The founders, Quentin & Tim, possess not only unique market insights from working in the energy sector, but an obsessive curiosity for assimilating information from outside their domain and weaving these insights into how they build their products, company and culture.
Their decision to start a media org probably best exemplifies this. It’s been Modo’s sole marketing strategy to date, resulting in 90% of their ICPs in the UK now either using their product or accessing their content. Modo’s media strategy consists of three core pillars:
- Energy Academy: high-quality, educational videos explaining the battery energy storage and renewable energy markets
- Transmission Podcast: insights from thought leaders, energy experts and cleantech specialists
- Written long-form research, market updates and explainers
Distribution > Product
Starting a new software company has never been easier. Would-be entrepreneurs have been treated to the boon of sophisticated, scalable and easy-to-use infrastructure as a service, AWS, Snowflake, OpenAI, React, Stripe. The playbooks for customer acquisition, company building and fundraising have been open-sourced by YC and VC thinkbois.
I firmly believe that if you are curious and obsessed, it is possible to learn anything on the internet: and starting a software company is no exception.
The second-order consequences? The average SaaS company now has more competition. G2 has over 115,000 software companies listed, including 655 CRM and 523 ATS products. Much of SaaS is becoming increasingly competitive and, dare I say, commoditised. Buyers are overwhelmed and the resulting rise in CAC is well documented.
As the barriers to new product creation fall, how do you win? Increasingly, the burden of innovation lies not solely in product features, but in distribution and brand. If every company is using the same GTM playbook, winners will seize the opportunity to differentiate.
The argument for (owned) media
Now that content creation is cheap and distribution is free, forward-thinking businesses have been working to build their own audiences… Rather than raising brand awareness, companies use content to create brand affinity. Instead of annoying customers through interruption, they can delight them through engagement.
— Quentin, CEO of Modo Energy
As content marketing has become ubiquitous, owned media reduces exposure to platform risk (algorithm changes), provides access to first-party data to lower your costs of market reach, and affords the brand more leverage to customise the user experience & build community.
At its core, owned media is about autonomy and control. Through digital channels (websites, blogs, email newsletters) and experiential programs (events, hackathons, conferences), a company builds direct relationships with its audience.
Verticalised media for verticalised software
B2B SaaS may be the best business model ever created, and I believe we are at the start of a new generation of companies building owned audiences and capturing the value with their software.
For verticalised software, this strategy makes even more sense. For these companies there may only be a few thousand customers in their ICP. A spray-and-pray approach to paid marketing is an inefficient use of capital, and spamming risks burning limited leads.
Building on the playbooks of Bloomberg and ProfitWell, Modo aim to generate 3+ touch points per lead per week and have created a brand synonymous with battery energy storage. To date, 90% of the ICPs in the UK either use a Modo product or regularly consume their content.
This strategy works particularly well in complicated industries undergoing disruption or change. In Modo’s case, we’re facing a generational transition of our energy systems, from centralised power stations running on fossil fuels to a decentralised grid underpinned by renewable energy assets. The resulting disruption has created an educational void that Modo have stepped into with their Energy Academy.
Undervalued talent & cultural inertia
I sat down with Modo’s Content Lead, Neil Weaver, to get the inside scoop on building an owned-media engine. Neil’s background is worth noting: before Modo he was a special-needs teacher in Birmingham. He didn’t have marketing experience, but he knew how to convey information in a digestible manner, was curious to learn and worked hard. Talent can come from surprising places.
- Start small and learn the basics. The first videos and podcasts you produce will be awful. Start by identifying your customers’ pain points.
- Hire highly organised, fast-learning generalists to build the new media arm; give them budget and space to self-educate on how to script, produce, shoot, edit and promote content.
- Build production capability in-house: own the equipment, studio and experience.
- Be deliberate. Identify the owned-media channels you plan to leverage and establish content guidelines, editorial calendars and approval processes.
- Focus on zero-click content and be anti-clickbait, provide immediate, actionable insights that benefit your audience’s daily lives.
- Be a champion of the whole industry. Collaborate with industry influencers & thought leaders; feature their content, not just your own.
A key factor in executing this playbook is c-suite buy-in, the founders must be 100% aligned with the strategy. It can be challenging to prove the tangible value of owned media on outcomes like brand awareness and revenue. But for those who execute effectively, I believe they gain a distribution advantage that could just make the difference in the crowded world of SaaS.