This Private Equity Investor-Turned-Founder Raised $25 Million To Solve Energy Access For 3 Billion People
Bill Lenihan’s entrepreneurial path didn’t start as an engineer, product builder, or early startup operator. Instead, his career began in the structured world of finance—investment banking and private equity—before evolving into technology operations and eventually entrepreneurship.
Today, Bill Lenihan is the Founder and CEO of ZOLA iNTELLIGENCE (ZOLAi), a company building agentic technology platforms to bring reliable, affordable energy to billions of people in emerging markets.
Growing Up in Southern California
Bill Lenihan grew up in Whittier, California, a smaller town located east of Los Angeles. His upbringing in Southern California exposed him early to diversity, community, and opportunity. He describes his childhood as grounded in a supportive family environment.
Bill had two sisters and parents who encouraged growth and ambition. Athletics also played an important role in shaping his mindset. He began swimming at a young age, later adding water polo in high school, and playing both sports through college at UCLA.
Water polo became an important formative experience. The sport reinforced teamwork, discipline, and competitiveness—traits that would later prove invaluable throughout his professional career.
After high school, Bill attended UCLA, beginning a journey that would eventually lead him into the world of finance and global business.
Starting a Career in Investment Banking
Like many future investors and operators, Bill’s professional journey began on Wall Street. After graduating from UCLA, he joined Credit Suisse as an analyst in the investment bank’s Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) group.
Working in M&A exposed Bill to complex transactions and corporate strategy at the highest levels. It also gave him a front-row seat to the world of private equity. Many of the deals he worked on involved private equity firms acquiring businesses, requiring financing, and transforming them through strategic improvements.
Bill became fascinated by that model. Private equity firms were not simply financing companies—they were evaluating operations, improving strategy, identifying viable opportunities, and unlocking value. This blend of finance and operations deeply interested him.
However, at the time, private equity firms were not actively recruiting directly from investment banks.
Bill realized that to transition into private equity, he would likely need an MBA. So, he enrolled at The Wharton School, one of the world’s leading business schools.
While pursuing his MBA, he intentionally structured his academic focus around the combination of skills required for private equity. He pursued a concentration in operations, general management, and finance, recognizing that investing in companies requires these disciplines.
Private equity, after all, involves evaluating how businesses operate and determining how they can improve. At Wharton, Bill leveraged the school’s powerful alumni network to build relationships with private equity professionals.
Those relationships ultimately led to an opportunity to join Goldman Sachs’ private equity practice.
Fifteen Years in Private Equity
Bill spent nearly 15 years working in private equity, beginning at Goldman Sachs and later joining Fremont Partners. His career eventually brought him to San Francisco, where Fremont Partners operated with a distinctive investment philosophy.
The firm was backed by the Bechtel family who built Bechtel Corporation, a 100+-year-old, fourth-generation family management organization. It was well-known for building some of the most complex infrastructure in the world. This heritage shaped Fremont’s approach to investing.
Rather than focusing solely on financial engineering, the firm prioritized operational improvement and long-term value creation. Their central questions were simple but powerful:
What risks exist in the business today? · How can the company become stronger in the future? · What operational changes will unlock growth?
This operating-oriented approach resonated deeply with Bill and further shaped his perspective on business. But eventually, a new opportunity emerged—one that would shift his career in a completely different direction. At that point, Fremont Partners became Calera Capital.
Crossing the Table: From Investor to Operator
After years in private equity, Bill was invited by an operating partner from Calera to join a technology company called Switch in the Bay Area. The company’s CEO believed Bill possessed something many investors lack: an interest and potential skill in general management and operations. At the time, he was about 40 years old.
Bill realized that if he ever wanted to experience the operating side of business, the moment had arrived. He decided to take the leap. His reasoning was simple: even if the experiment failed, becoming an operator would likely make him a better investor.
Bill kept his options open—maybe he could go back to private equity. What he quickly discovered, however, was that operating a company requires an entirely different skill set.
The Reality of Being an Operator
Many investors believe they would excel as operators. Bill admits he initially thought the same. But the transition from a financial investor to operator and founder of ZOLAi revealed how different the roles truly are.
However, gaining the investor perspective and education centered on making and optimizing for profitability made a huge difference. Bill had learned that EBITDA and growth are everything in private equity.
Investors operate with a broad perspective. They must understand pattern recognition when evaluating multiple companies, analyzing across business models, and assessing risk across portfolios. Their task is very data-oriented.
Operators, on the other hand, must focus deeply on execution within a single organization. Bill views both as very different skill sets, but also complementary. The job involves building teams, structuring organizations, setting operational targets, and managing execution day after day.
Bill quickly realized that success as an operator depends heavily on organizational development. Strategy matters—but the ability to organize people around that strategy matters even more. Despite the steep learning curve, his PE background proved invaluable in one critical area: capital allocation.
Capital Allocation: The CEO’s Most Important Skill
Bill believes that one of the most important responsibilities of a CEO is allocating scarce capital effectively. Early-stage companies have limited resources. Every dollar must be directed toward the highest-return, lowest-risk opportunities.
These decisions might involve funding a new product initiative, expanding into a new market, hiring key personnel, and investing in technology infrastructure.
Private equity experience and the analytical capabilities he had developed sharpened Bill’s ability to evaluate these trade-offs using data and financial discipline. He considers it highly beneficial because he learned pattern recognition for determining whether initiatives would be fruitful.
But after spending 15 years as both an investor and an operator, a new opportunity would soon emerge—one that would define the next chapter of his career. By this time, Bill was ready to embrace the other side of the table, from being an investor to going at it on his own.
Discovering a Global Energy Crisis
Bill eventually encountered a company called Off Grid Electric, which would later evolve into ZOLAi. It was his first role on the operations side of the technology. As he reveals, he enjoyed the organizational dynamic of a company relative to a private equity firm.
Bill had been looking for a specific role, such as a COO or a CEO, and a specific technology-driven company. Most importantly, he needed it to be big and impactful. Off Grid Electric fit the bill because it was a renewable energy company and tackling a worldwide problem.
At the time, the company operated in Africa, installing small solar systems and lithium-ion batteries in rural communities and among off-grid farmers in the Serengeti who lacked access to reliable electricity. Essentially, it was doing IoT distribution.
Users were displacing kerosene lanterns with small connected devices that required mobile payments. Initially, Bill was unsure whether the opportunity was right for him. He had little experience with Africa, renewable energy, or rural infrastructure.
But before making a decision, Bill traveled to Africa to see the business firsthand. That trip changed everything.
The Moment That Changed Everything
During his visit, Bill witnessed something that left a lasting impression. He encountered a massive problem that needed solving. The impact: three billion people lacked reliable, affordable energy. The solution was relatively unique to those markets.
The main competitor here was kerosene, and the company was installing small, connected devices to generate energy for farmers—an entirely unique concept.
From a private equity perspective, it was unclear whether there was any return on investment or capital in the business, or whether it was sustainable. In fact, it was far from being sustainable at the time. But then Bill had firsthand experience of how the system worked.
The team had installed a solar-powered system capable of running a television in a small rural home. One evening, after fixing a malfunctioning unit, they switched the system on. The hut lit up in the darkness. Within minutes, the entire community gathered around the house.
Children played outside while adults gathered inside to watch television and socialize. For the first time, the home had reliable light and power. That moment revealed something powerful. Energy access wasn’t just about electricity—it was about transforming lives and communities.
Bill realized he had discovered a mission worth pursuing. What he initially thought might be a two-year short-term experiment turned into a decade-long commitment.
The Birth of Zola Intelligence
As Bill explains, ZOLAi is a mission-oriented company. He strongly believes in the mission and in their ability to change the world. Ultimately, it transitioned from distribution IoT to its current model—an agentlc enterprise technology platform.
Now, ZOLAi is an enterprise company that sells technology to companies of all sizes to solve on-the-ground energy problems in their countries.
Bill reveals how he quickly realized that the hardware distribution model, even if it was IoT, could be a problem. The grid was unreliable, and gaps were bridged using diesel generators, inverters, batteries, solar panels, and other hardware.
Close to 80 countries and 3 billion people worldwide relied on them for energy. The grids and hardware distribution model didn’t have any return on investment (ROI), and the customer experience was terrible, as Bill realized.
Distributing hardware—solar panels, batteries, and inverters—had its limitations. It was not enough to solve the energy problem in emerging markets. The result is often an inefficient and expensive energy ecosystem.
Bill’s vision was to shift the industry away from hardware distribution and toward Energy-as-a-Service. They had the technology—all it needed was funding.
Building Agentic Energy Platforms
Three years ago, Bill raised $20M to build a new enterprise technology platform. That platform now powers ZOLA iNTELLIGENCE. Rather than selling hardware directly, ZOLAi provides a comprehensive technology platform that enables companies to deliver energy as a service.
Storytelling is everything that Bill was able to master. The key is capturing the essence of what you are doing in 15 to 20 slides. For a winning deck, take a look at the pitch deck template created by Peter Thiel, Silicon Valley legend (<a href=" target="blank" rel="noopener">see it here</a>), where the most critical slides are highlighted.
Remember to unlock the pitch deck template that founders worldwide are using to raise millions below.
Hardware Infrastructure: Batteries, inverters, and connected devices that generate and store energy. · Control Layer: Software that manages and optimizes energy systems. · Application Layer: Enterprise tools that allow companies to manage operations, workflows, and customers.
One of the platform's most powerful features is its use of agentic software systems. Zola’s customer companies don’t just sell hardware to consumers; they sell leases or energy-as-a-service. Consumers pay for energy, just as users in the US, without worrying about maintenance issues.
For example, Zola’s underwriting agents can automatically assess whether customers qualify for energy financing. These systems evaluate customer identity (KYC), credit information, and risk profiles.
The platform can then approve financing and price the energy service to ensure sustainable returns. This dramatically improves efficiency, reduces defaults, and allows companies to scale energy services in emerging markets.
The principle is simple. If energy companies are going to solve the problem of expanding energy access for 3 billion people, they have to have an ROI.
The Challenge of Raising Capital for Emerging Markets
Raising capital for ZOLAi required a very different strategy than that of typical venture-backed startups. Emerging-market infrastructure projects require patient, risk-tolerant investors.
Bill underscores that, as this is deep technology, it takes a lot of time. He needed to be intentional about securing capital.
He focused on identifying investors who understand emerging markets, believe in long-term infrastructure investments, care about global energy access, and are aligned with the company’s mission. In short, they needed to be technology and mission-oriented.
This intentional investor selection process allowed ZOLAi to secure the funding required to build its platform. As Bill points out, if you can “find that specification of investor, then you've got a good business model, because the opportunity obviously is what drives the investment.”
A Vision for the Future
Bill envisions a future in which energy distribution across emerging markets is powered by major service companies, such as telecommunications or Energy Service providers. He explains that telecom operators tend to be the biggest, most profitable companies in their countries.
These operators already provide critical infrastructure in many developing economies by delivering connectivity, mobile payments, and financial services. They provide the most needed service and deliver an exceptional experience for customers.
Now, through partnerships with ZOLAi, they may also deliver energy services. Bill recently secured a partnership with a telecommunications company that will integrate Zola’s technology into its platform.
If ZOLAi succeeds, similar partnerships could expand across 80 countries where reliable energy remains scarce. In addition to driving data, connectivity, and payments in their country, they will also drive energy-as-a-service for their country and all their customers.
The goal is clear: Deliver reliable and affordable energy to three billion people worldwide.
Advice to His Younger Self
Trust Your Instincts: If you believe you are suited for operating or entrepreneurship, trust that intuition. · Be Patient Finding the Right Opportunity: Unlike private equity investors who build portfolios, operators get one opportunity at a time. Choosing the right one matters. · Align with a Mission: The most successful operators are driven by purpose and passion for the problems they are solving.
When these elements align, the chances of success increase dramatically.
A Mission Worth Pursuing
Bill Lenihan’s journey—from investment banker to private equity investor, from operator to founder—demonstrates how diverse experiences can converge into a mission-driven entrepreneurial path.
Today, through ZOLA iNTELLIGENCE, he is working to solve one of the world’s most important infrastructure challenges: reliable energy access. For billions of people across emerging markets, that solution could transform entire communities.
Just as Bill witnessed in that small village years ago, when a single light illuminated the night.
Trust your instincts when choosing between investing and operating if you feel drawn to building companies. · Patience is critical because operators often have only one major opportunity, unlike investors managing portfolios. · Finding the right opportunity matters more than moving quickly into the wrong one. · A founder’s career is often a “rifle shot,” requiring focus on a single mission rather than diversified bets. · Passion and belief in the mission are essential to sustain the challenges of building a company. · Alignment between skills, patience, and purpose significantly increases the odds of success. · Without conviction, patience, and mission alignment, the entrepreneurial path becomes far riskier.
@alejandro@ac8partners.com I made some minor tweaks to clarify some things and ensure accuracy. This looks great Alejandro, well done!!!
@bill@zolaintelligence.com This is the photo we use for your bio. I don't have other photos that have ZOLA in the background
Original Version
Alejandro Cremades: All righty. Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Dealmaker Show. So today we're going to have a really great founder. you know We're going to be talking about that interesting transition from the investor side of the table to really you know becoming a founder, being on the operator side of things, you know the building, scaling, financing, i mean you name it. you know I think that you guys are going to find the conversation today quite inspiring.
Alejandro Cremades: And without further ado, I'd like to welcome our guest today, Bill Lennyhan. Welcome to the show.
Alejandro Cremades: So you grew up in Southern California. Bill, give us a walk through memory lane. How was life growing up over there?
Bill Lenihan: It was great. It was great. I grew up in Whittier, California. It was a smaller town outside of Los Angeles, more East LA.
Bill Lenihan: Parents were great parents, had two great sisters, went to a rather large public high school and then made my way to UCLA. But it was, ah Los Angeles was a great place to grow up, super diverse and connects well to some of the things that I'm doing now.
Alejandro Cremades: And quite the competitive spirit, you know, early on playing water polo. So where where did that come from?
Bill Lenihan: That came from swimming. I started swimming as a kid, really young. And then i found my way to a sport that actually was a little more fun, a little more team oriented and started to play in high school and then took those sports to to college.
Alejandro Cremades: And talking about the studies too, on your case, i mean, you you ended up doing your MBA at Wharton, great school. But one thing that they that that is true in your in your career is that you've done a couple of shifts or changes of gear that I think that perhaps you know may have been very helpful too on the way that you've been able to do knowledge transfer.
Alejandro Cremades: You started out more like on the investment banking side with Credit Suisse. And then from there, you know, more into private equity via Goldman Sachs. And then from there, obviously, you know, private equity to now being a founder. But walk us through how you did that transition and and how you used ultimately the MBA as well to to be able to switch the gears like that.
Bill Lenihan: Yeah, no, the yeah I really kind of think about it more as just one transition from from finance to operations. but But you're right. I started as an analyst out of undergrad.
Bill Lenihan: i worked for Credit Suisse and I worked in the M&A department. And we um we we spent a lot of time with private equity firms. And I really...
Bill Lenihan: thought highly of that model. i was interested in that business model, particularly as an investor.
Bill Lenihan: And ah so the the transition to private equity was really catalyzed by my move to to business school. At the time, there's it's different now, but private equity wasn't really coming to Wall Street investment banks to find people.
Bill Lenihan: So I needed to go get my MBA. In my MBA, I focused on I was a dual major in operations, general management and finance.
Bill Lenihan: And I felt that your private equity, what is private equity? It's and investing in businesses.
Bill Lenihan: So you're you're evaluating operations, you're evaluating strategy, what opportunities exist, and then you're risk valuing companies.
Bill Lenihan: So it's a really a mix between operations, as I saw it in operations and finance. I got my dual degree at Wharton and Wharton allowed me to access to a lot of private equity firms. Not that they were really recruiting there, but there was a good alumni network and I leveraged that alumni network and ultimately leveraged it into a ah role at Goldman Sachs where where I was working in their private equity practice.
Bill Lenihan: And then on the private equity side, i spent almost 15 years. I started at Goldman and then I worked at a firm called Fremont Partners. After that, I moved from New York to San Francisco.
Bill Lenihan: Fremont Partners is ah is a was run by and capital was the Bechtel family, Bechtel Construction Engineering. And I was really attracted to that model. that That's a hundred plus year old, four generation family management organization. And the way that they invested in bought companies was different. It was really more operating oriented.
Bill Lenihan: What's the risk in the business model today? How can you build it and make it greater in the in the future? it was a different approach to private equity. I gravitated towards it. i did that for a number of years.
Bill Lenihan: And then I got an opportunity to join an operating partner from from Fremont Partners. At that point, Fremont Partners had transitioned into a company called Calera Capital.
Bill Lenihan: We had spun out into a different entity with different investors. And one of our operating partners went to work for a company called Switch, which was a technology company here where I live in the Bay Area.
Bill Lenihan: And the CEO of the company asked if I wanted to come join. he thought maybe he saw something in me that maybe a lot of private equity people don't have an interest in, and that's in general management.
Bill Lenihan: And I think I was 40 at the time. And I thought, well what the heck? If I'm ever going to try something different here, this is the time. And I felt there was no real downside to it. I felt like i if I went out and was a great operator, it would only make me a better investor.
Bill Lenihan: And maybe I come back into private equity, maybe I don't. So I joined him. And from there, my technology operating career has now also been about 15 years.
Bill Lenihan: And I am currently, I've changed from being an operator, from a financier investor to an operator, and now to a a founder CEO of of Zola Intelligence.
Alejandro Cremades: Now, one thing that is but one one thing that you know is really interesting here is because i mean i see I see people going from one side of the table to the other.
Alejandro Cremades: I find that in you know from from venture capital to to to founder, I think that is say it's a close jump. I think that from PE to founder is it's is's a little bit farther, but I think it's it gives you more of an advantage because of the the perspective and the education that you get about making and optimizing for profitability at the end, because, you know, EBITDA absolutely everything, you know, when it comes to to private equity. But I think that given the times that we're in now with venture capital where
Alejandro Cremades: Especially we've seen this, you know, after COVID where you had the, it was growth above everything else before. So if you were a great company, very profitable, and you were not, a you know, more growing like crazy and burning, then you were not as sexy. And then you went you went from that to the burning and then now it's all about profitability and now they the companies that were good you know became shitty and then the shitty companies became amazing companies. I think that ultimately that gives you a tremendous advantage too as a a founder and operator, now which is to really understand you know what moves the needle when it comes to to to to to building a solid and profitable business. I think that How do you think that that that private equity you know experience for 15 years has really shaped the way that you tackle execution?
Bill Lenihan: So, you know, what the future looks like, if we've done our job, is that we have three to five of those companies doing the same thing in all 80 of the countries that today suffer from unreliable, unaffordable energy.
Bill Lenihan: And those companies are delivering a great customer experience and delivering reliable, affordable energy to the 3 billion people that don't have it today.
Alejandro Cremades: So imagine now that I'm able to bring you back to that moment where you were thinking about founding your own thing. Or maybe even better, before you were going to the operating seat. And let's say you're able to give that younger Bill one piece of advice. What would that be and why, given what you know now?
Bill Lenihan: So I would tell that person to definitely trust your instincts. If you feel that you would enjoy it, drive passion, and be a good operator, then trust that.
Bill Lenihan: I would then give them the advice to be patient in finding the right opportunity. The other big difference in operations versus private equity is, one, you've got a portfolio. In the other one, you've got one shot. It's a rifle-shot approach to your career.
Bill Lenihan: So you have to be patient in terms of finding that opportunity. And then my third advice would be to make sure you really are behind what you're doing, and you're mission-oriented, and you're passionate about it.
Bill Lenihan: I think if those things all kind of line up—you feel you'll be good at it, you're patient enough to find the right opportunity that really drives you, and you're driven by that opportunity—then you're going to be successful, however you define success.
Bill Lenihan: If you don't do those things, then it'll be a riskier path.
Alejandro Cremades: I love that. Bill, for the people that are listening that would love to reach out, say hi, and learn more about Sola, what is the best way for them to do so?
Bill Lenihan: Oh, gosh. Well, I'm actually about to launch a new website here, so maybe hold off. I don't think our current website is that great, but ZolaIntelligence.com. And then I'm on LinkedIn. So you can hit me up on LinkedIn and follow me, and we can be connected that way.
Alejandro Cremades: Well, Bill, thank you so much for being on the Dealmaker Show today. It has been an honor to have you with us.
Bill Lenihan: I loved being here, Alejandro. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you.
