The rules of utility planning are being rewritten by climate volatility.

U.S. losses from billion-dollar climate disasters are now more than 8x higher than in the 1980s. Last year alone, the U.S. saw 27 climate-fueled disasters costing over $182 billion. For utilities, it’s a financial reckoning. Some storms are now racking up over $1.4 billion in losses for a single utility. In response, utilities are increasing resilience spending by 15–25% annually. As extreme weather grows more frequent and severe, grid operators need better tools to assess future risks, justify capital investments, and protect the communities they serve.

Rhizome was founded in 2023 to give utilities the data-driven answers they need. MCJ is excited to participate in Rhizone’s Seed Round led by Base10 Partners. Keep reading to learn more about Rhizome and why we invested.

What is Rhizome?

Rhizome is building an AI-powered software platform that helps electric utilities quantify climate risk, pinpoint infrastructure vulnerabilities, and prioritize grid resilience investments with the highest impact. At its core is a geospatial planning tool. Founder Mish Thadani describes it as “SimCity for resilience,” a tool that integrates climate projections, asset fragility data, and system topology to identify where outages are most likely and what interventions (like reconductoring, vegetation management, or covered conductors) will deliver the greatest bang for the buck. Its product suite includes tools for long-term grid reliability, wildfire mitigation, and asset risk and capacity planning.

Rhizome's gridFIRM™ helps utilities prevent, prepare for, and plan against wildfires—before disaster strikes.

Rhizome’s software addresses growing financial and regulatory pressure on utilities. By automating cost-benefit analyses, resilience impact modeling, and tracking investment benefits, it helps utilities justify infrastructure upgrades to regulators, critical at a time when over 100 utilities have faced credit downgrades and the sector is staring down a $500B resilience funding gap. It replaces disconnected, spreadsheet-heavy planning workflows with a unified platform designed for capital efficiency and regulatory alignment.

🎙️ Rhizome's Resilience Planning

Why Did We Invest?

Compelling Founder-Market Fit

Rhizome was co-founded by Mish Thadani and Rahul Dubey, who bring deep expertise in grid resilience, AI, and climate risk modeling.

Mish, the company’s CEO, previously worked across public policy, advanced energy systems, and grid modernization, including roles in regulatory advocacy and distributed energy integration. Most notably, Mish served as the VP of Strategy and Policy at Urbint, an AI platform helping utilities predict and prevent safety risks to workers and critical infrastructure. His path to Rhizome started with a bold proposal to replace a $250M substation upgrade in D.C. with a distributed battery network, a move that foreshadowed his drive to challenge outdated grid planning norms.

Rahul, Rhizome’s CTO, is the former VP of Engineering at Jupiter Intelligence, a pioneer in climate risk analytics. With over 20 years of experience leading software and AI teams and building peta-scale distributed cloud systems, Rahul brings a rare combination of technical depth and domain fluency. Rahul also sits on the board of directors for MAAD and is a technology advisor to a few startups.

Early Customer Traction

Rhizome has already demonstrated real-world value, with its platform now in use at utilities like National Grid, Avangrid, and Seattle City Light. In one case, its models identified 72% more potential asset failures than the utility's prior approach. As aging infrastructure and climate-driven storms strain power systems nationwide, Rhizome equips planners with the data and foresight to strengthen the grid before disaster strikes.

At MCJ, we believe the investment case for infrastructure resilience today mirrors the early days of cybersecurity. Rhizome aligns with our thesis around digital tools that accelerate energy adaptation, unlock capital efficiency, and integrate with incumbent utility planning cycles. We’re excited to partner with Mish and the team as they expand across geographies, grow their team, and build out Rhizome’s platform capabilities.

Additional Resources

🎙️ MCJ Startup Series: Rhizome's Resilience Planning for Utilities

Our Investment in Rhizome