Backup Power Is Out of Reach for Most

Home battery backup has long been inaccessible to most people: conventional systems like the Tesla Powerwall require professional installation, a dedicated electrical panel, home ownership, and five-figure budgets — locking out the roughly one-third of Americans who rent and anyone in a multifamily building. As extreme weather drives more frequent grid outages, that leaves a huge population with no affordable path to energy resilience.

What They're Building

Pila Energy builds the Pila Mesh Home Battery, a plug-in, modular battery platform designed to sidestep those barriers. Units plug into a standard outlet, stack together to scale capacity, and use intelligent "mesh" software to coordinate power across a home — creating an "island of power" without an electrician or panel upgrade. Batteries are offered at roughly $1,299 (with $99 pre-orders), a fraction of traditional whole-home systems, making the product viable for renters and apartment dwellers.

The product debuted at SXSW 2025 and won a CES 2026 Innovation Award.

Growth

In October 2025, Pila raised a $4M seed round led by R7 Partners, with participation from Toyota Ventures, Refactor Capital, GS Futures, and others, to scale manufacturing and deliver its first batteries to customers.