Nathan identified other compelling reasons tribes with good wind resources would want Wind Harvesters in their projects. Our VAWTs are:
- Are expected to be bird, bat, and buffalo friendly.
- Would be assembled locally, providing good jobs for tribal members
- Have a 70+ year fatigue life and easy, simple maintenance requirements
- Will be quieter than HAWTs, and
- Have a very high density of energy production per area of land
All this information and their significant experience, convinced us to hire Kamaka Global and Nathan to help bring Wind Harvesters into what we are calling “Renewable Energy Ecosystem” projects that integrate wind and solar into the habitat as opposed to maximizing the output per acre. Nathan has started working with Wind Harvest to advance these plans.
A few days after we met Nathan, Gary Simon, the founder and leader of Sacramento Clean Start brought Pronita Saxena to the Wind Harvest office for what ended up being a long lunch. I was impressed and interested in her proposal to be Wind Harvest’s CDO.
Principal engineer Ola Ajala, Tom, and I then spent a day with Pronita to review and strategize on the Kamaka Global and other opportunities including the ones we have in our St. Croix pipeline (e.g. the Coke Dock Peninsula project with Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation being the off-taker and Leatherback Brewery nearby).
It was clear that Pronita was just the person we’d want as the CDO – even though we hadn’t planned on hiring this position for a while. She could start working immediately with Nathan to help tribes in six states meet the July 4, 2026 deadline for “breaking ground” and securing the 50% Investment Tax Credits available for Renewable Energy Ecosystem projects. With a board resolution and contract in place, Pronita is now Wind Harvest’s Chief Development Officer. She is moving fast with all the energy and talent she is known for.
All this momentum on projects needs a bigger source of capital than can be met from our StartEngine offeringalone. But more synchronicity keeps occurring.
Last fall, I began discussions with two individuals who l met via LinkedIn. In January, one introduced us to a family office and the other to Chair Capital. Both groups have a special passion for investing in industrial-scale technologies with large project financing opportunities. Each has a $20M minimum amount that they want to invest in the right pre-revenue companies to help them complete the commercialization process.
With 8-10 projects possible in 2027, Wind Harvest’s five-year financial model shows a total need for $24M, most of which will be used for working capital and “specialty insurance wraps” required for loans to projects that use not-yet-fully “proven” clean energy technology.
Three weeks ago we paid a refundable £5000 to have Chair Capital start a three month due diligence process to potentially complete and sign a term sheet. Their investment would be through a Series B Preferred Share round. The funds would be released as milestones are reached. The earliest and easiest potential milestones would be “power performance” third-party certification and aeroelastic code validation on two Wind Harvesters. We’ve already internally validated both on two full scale prototypes (Model 3.0 and Model 3.1). With turbines, expected to be installed in the summer, those milestones have the potential to be completed early in the fall.
Chair Capital has years of experience working with companies like ours. They know early stage technologies need capital to make major milestones and release the Series B capital so they also help arrange mezzanine (bridge) loan investments to cover the capital gap for the companies they invest in. For us, this would help finance our plans to lend the tribal projects the capital they need by July so they can lock in the “Safe Harbor” protection for completing Wind Harvester – solar – battery storage projects by the end of 2030 and receive the U.S. 50% Investment Tax Credit.
The second investor, the family office, is known to be founder-friendly in how they structure their term sheets and when their preferred SAFE-type investments convert into shares. They also are on track for a May investment date and have a minimum investment amount of $20M.
Having navigated the demanding Class IV and V rapids of product prototyping and development, Wind Harvest is advancing into the last stage of product commercialization. We are grateful to our investors and supporters for their continued contributions and participation in this adventure.
Forward paddle!
Kevin Wolf – Head Guide and CEO
