World’s first enhanced geothermal power plant completed in just 23 months; plus, turning idle car inventory into rental revenue

0:01This is TechCrunch.

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1:13That's Framer.com slash tcstartups. Rules and restrictions may apply. Geothermal company Furvo Energy announced on Thursday that it had started selling electricity from its Cape Station power plant to the grid on September 30th. a day ahead of schedule. With it, Fervo becomes the first enhanced geothermal company to reach a key commercial milestone. The power plant synchronized with the grid about a week ago, bringing online the first third of what will soon become a 100-megawatt power plant. The entire site could be much larger, though, with the potential to generate as much as 4 gigawatts of electricity.

1:55FURVO co-founder and CEO Tim Latimer said, No team has ever built a project like this anywhere in the world, and we did it ahead of schedule. From groundbreaking to commercial operations, the first block at Cape Station took 23 months to complete. As FURVO refines its process, it is aiming to complete future blocks in as little as 18 months. That sort of speed to power should appeal to power-starved data center operators who have been scouring every part of the energy sector for generating capacity. Geothermal can also be developed in phases, similar to how data centers are developed, allowing hyperscalers to bring racks online as demand ramps up.

2:41Google, Southern California Edison, and others have committed to buying power from Fervo's Cape Station project. Fervo is one of several companies developing enhanced geothermal power plants. While traditional geothermal power taps heat sources close to the surface, Fervo and its peers are drilling deeper because deeper rock is hotter, opening more opportunities for development. Fervo went public back in May in an upsized IPO that raised nearly$2 billion. It was founded in 2017, bringing drilling techniques and technologies from the oil and gas sector to the development of new geothermal resources.

3:22As a startup, the company raised more than$1.3 billion from investors, including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Congruent Ventures, and Capricorn Investment Group.

3:35When Igor Dobriansky looks at a car dealership lot, he sees a wasted opportunity. He said in a recent interview with TechCrunch that millions and millions of used cars are just sitting on parking lots, depreciating and losing value, adding that there are 76 ,000 dealerships in the U.S. At the same time, there are people who need a car for a few months, but the options are actually very limited and expensive. Dobriansky's new startup, My Monthly Car, aims to connect both sides of that equation through an online platform that offers flexible month-to-month rentals from local dealerships. My Monthly Car was selected for the 2026 Startup Battlefield 200, a cohort of promising early-stage startups that have earned a spot to exhibit at this year's TechCrunch Disrupt, taking place October 13-15 in San Francisco.

4:32My Monthly Car does what its name suggests, with one twist. The startup only rents used cars on a month-to-month basis. No short-term options here, but it does give dealerships the chance to offer customers a rent-to-own option. He said, we don't bring them only customers to rent on a monthly basis. We basically bring them the clients who potentially could buy that car as well. My Monthly Car does not charge dealerships to list cars on its website. Instead, My Monthly Car charges dealers 10 % of each transaction. It also charges the customer a separate 10 % fee. The idea for the company stems from Dobryansky's previous experience in the industry.

5:17The founder owned a car rental company in his home country of Ukraine, but the lack of financing options there limited his ability to scale. In 2016, he launched a peer-to-peer car marketplace called SizeCar, where owners rent their cars to other drivers, much like Turo does today. SizeCar eventually spread to 40 European cities. The startup has signed on seven dealerships to test the service and is working with an insurance broker to finalize its own insurance program, which will let customers choose among different types of coverage. He said, insurance is the key for this business, and you need to have your own insurance as a platform, noting that the number one question that he got from dealers was about insurance and liability coverage.

6:05Despite its early-stage status, the founders have bullish projections for the startup. They plan to sign on 100 dealerships with 2 ,000 monthly rentals and$300 ,000 in revenue in the company's first year of operation, which will kick off later this year once the insurance program launches. Over the next five years, the goal is to generate$42 million in revenue. The startup has yet to raise venture capital and is currently bootstrapped, but Dobriansky said the plan is to raise a seed round, with the funds helping the company hire more developers to build out the platform, including an AI tool to help dealers identify which cars are best to rent out at any given time.

6:48To check out my monthly car and the other startups that are part of TechCrunch's Startup Battlefield competition, as well as to network with the folks funding them, well, you can join the TechCrunch folks next month at Disrupt. That's all for now. For the latest in startup tech news, go to TechCrunch.com.

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