James Mcdougall

Serial-Parallel Entrepreneur & Seasoned Turnaround CEO | Former Co-Founder of Tera Ventures | Active Angel Investor and Board Member | 🇺🇸 🇬🇷 🇵🇹 🇪🇪 🇨🇾 🇨🇳 🇫🇮 🇸🇮 🇻🇬 🇪🇸 🇧🇷 🇲🇽 🇲🇿 🇯🇵 🇮🇳

📍 Estonia, Estonia🔄 Updated September 2026💼 17 investments📅 9 years investing🗓 Last invested Oct 2022𝕏 @upgrade_to_unlock
VC🌍 Estonia
17
Total investments
4
Early stage
5
Mid stage
5
Late stage
9y
Years active

Portfolio

15 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Angel Investor
Oct 2022
We are an innovator of high temperature thermal energy storages for industrial applications and district heating. #sandbattery
Angel Investor
Mar 2022
PowerUp provides clean and portable energy by delivering a hydrogen fuel cell backup generator solution, which can be used for various technologies - yachts, boats, recreational vehicles and many more.
Angel Investor
Jul 2021
We are dedicated to create scalable solutions and services for small spacecraft movement and lifecycle control.
Angel Investor
Jun 2021
Fusebox is a modular, hardware-agnostic energy operating system that connects assets, tools, and markets into one operating layer you control. It replaces fragmented site control, portfolio tooling, and TSO workflows with a single system, so teams can onboard faster, standardize dispatch, and scale market participation across countries without rebuilding their stack. What we enable (end-to-end): • Control: consistent telemetry + real-time dispatch across mixed fleets • Aggregation: portfolio orchestration with availability, constraints, buffers, and activation logic • Market execution: standardized, TSO-grade workflows from bidding → activation → reporting • Interoperability: open interfaces to integrate partners and keep your existing tools What you keep (you stay in control of): • Your trading desk and market strategy • Your optimizer/forecasting approach (existing or new) • Your commercial model and customer relationships • Freedom to swap tools without re-platforming What Fusebox standardizes (so you can scale): • Asset connectivity patterns and operational data flow • Real-time site control + dispatch coordination • Portfolio availability/constraints and activation logic • Settlement-ready operational outputs and reporting workflows Proven in live operations: Live in 14 European countries with 9 TSO integrations, supporting mFRR / aFRR / FCR workflows. Single deployments manage 1,000+ assets and 300+ MW. Built on 11+ years in flexibility operations. Who it’s for: BRPs, BSPs, utilities, traders, and aggregators managing PV, wind, BESS, and flexible loads. Especially teams who want enabling infrastructure they control, not a dependency.
Investor
May 2021
Autonomous Pavement Marking Robots
Angel Investor
May 2021
Bisly building automation system is an intelligent system of both hardware and software, connecting heating, venting and air conditioning system (HVAC), lighting, security, and other systems to communicate on a single platform.
Angel Investor
May 2021
R8tech is a company that is focused on decreasing energy consumption and CO2 emissions of large premium class commercial properties (shopping malls, office buildings, hotels etc) while keeping outstanding indoor climate for every room and area. While doing that it is possible to create significant amount of savings for the building owners and managers. We add artificial intelligence on top of your existing automation system. R8 Digital Operator makes your BMS operations thousands of times more effective by calculating and adjusting the HVAC system setpoints every 15 minutes 24/7/365. How many adjustments does your present service provider proactively make?
Angel Investor
Apr 2021
SunRoof is revolutionizing home electrification and decentralized renewable energy generation with the most powerful and resource-efficient 2-in-1 solar roofs on the market. Our solutions seamlessly combine exceptional functionality with an aesthetic design that both pleases and impresses customers. Serving private homes, developers, commercial buildings, and public structures, SunRoof is at the forefront of delivering sustainable energy solutions. We are proud to lead the way toward a greener, more energy-efficient future.
Angel Investor
Feb 2021
Reframe Financial is an InsurTech company made up of insurance industry veterans and tech trailblazers, on a mission to help today’s families prepare for and manage the financial and emotional issues of aging. We are doing this by partnering with the best in the industry to develop new kinds of insurance that address multiple needs, and by building a state-of-the-art process and platform that will delight our customers and distributors, from time of application to when benefits are received. Our disruptive innovations are inspired by bold thinking, the latest advances in technology, and a passion for improving people’s lives. Reframe operates remotely, and is based in Los Angeles, CA.
early stageInsurance
Board Member
Dec 2020
AI Clearing: the ONLY computer vision foundational model + agentic platform for the construction sector. Established in 2020 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, AI Clearing is a leading global provider of an AI-powered platform for the infrastructure construction industry. We partner with general contractors and asset owners, empowering them to leverage artificial intelligence to boost productivity and profitability.
early stageConstruction
Board Observer
Jun 2020
We think a revolution in healthcare is coming. By using cutting-edge artificial intelligence and novel analysis techniques employed at CERN, we are transforming the treatment of serious medical conditions. Our mission is to collect and translate clinical data into real-time, predictive assessments that guide the actions of patients and healthcare providers. We're backed by Europe's top accelerator, Entrepreneur First, which specialises in building deep technology companies, and have links to Cambridge University.
Board Member
Jul 2017
Thinnect is an IoT edge network service provider. Our service is complimentary to cellular operators, offering high density, large scale, local coverage, utilizing cost efficient technologies. Not only do we offer the best networking technology in the world (5x reliability, 2x throughput of Zigbee), but we back this up with cloud-based, real-time quality of service, government-grade network security and bandwidth-optimization for application overlays. Since IoT is a newly forming market (arguably at the hype​ stage of early adoption), Thinnect is utilizing indoor commercial lighting and street lighting to cost-effectively deploy our networks, by utilizing motion and daylight detection to harvest energy savings. Companies who deploy our networks therefore receive the immediate benefit of reduced electricity bills, as well as being IoT ready​ for future IoT services we will offer. Thinnect is working with established, industry recognized companies who deploy our networks under their own brand. We are also working with IoT application providers to provision their IoT services onto our networks. Our technology has the unique ability to form networks that require no planning. This is significant as it means our networks can be deployed by electrical contractors, without any need for specialized (expensive) technical support. By removing this cost overhead, we make it economically viable for our customers to deploy any sized network, from very large through to very small. By comparison, other companies offering commercial intelligent lighting or IoT networks (due to their technical support overheads) are being forced to only take on very large projects (3000+ nodes typically), not reaching 80%+ of the market. Our patented technology was developed over 11 years and is 8 years field proven in intelligent border patrol networks (defending 20 countries today) and intelligent street lighting (6 countries) with over 33,000,000 node-hours of operation.
Board Member
Feb 2017
Defendec is an innovative company specializing in the development of world-class remote premises surveillance technology. The company operates globally with offices in Washington, D.C, Singapore, Estonia. Defendecs main product, Smartdec, is securing NATO’s and European Unions external borders. It is currently operational worldwide. Smartdec helps stop international smuggling, illegal trafficking, and acts of sabotage every day making it the technology of choice among border guards.
Board Member
Jan 2017
Goliath Wind OÜ is a Tallinn based wind turbine technology company established in 2008. Our Capella™ 3 wind turbine platform has been developed based on our own unique and distinctive Cyclos™ 3 large diameter ring generator. The generator is based on permanent magnet and concentrated air-gap winding technology developed at Durham University in the UK. The platform includes multiple blade diameters hub heights and wind class configurations, which all are based on the same core design. The Capella™ 3 is designed as a rugged and relatively simple wind turbine which can be manufactured locally anywhere in the world in most metal construction workshops and foundries without major investments into specialized tooling. Being modular in design, Capella™ 3 components are easy to transport and the final assembly takes place on site. Sturdy design and generator modularity ensure that all key electromagnetic parts can be replaced or repaired up-tower and that the turbine can maintain partial operation even if failures occur in the power generation system. The Capella™ 3 turbine is a cost-efficient machine with 25 years’ fatigue life on all main structural parts. Combined with the highest in-class reliability and maintainability, the Capella™ 3 turbine offers the lowest cost of energy over the entire turbine lifetime. The Capella™ 3 platform is marketed by local partners, who in turn are backed-up by the Centre of Excellence services provided by Goliath Wind. The first projects with Capella™ turbines are currently under construction. Capella™ - Competitive Everywhere! www.capellawind.com
Board Member
Jan 2017
my!WIND is a developer and producer of small wind turbine generators for residential and small commercial users.
Experience · 39 entries
All (39)
Investments (17)
Founder (11)
Board (7)
2026
Founder and CEO
Feb 2026
The Context Layer for Agentic AI One workspace. Every AI platform. Every channel. Zero context lost. The context layer, audit trail, and agentic orchestration platform that every AI platform benefits from — and no incumbent can replicate.
Executive Chairman and Co-Founder
Jan 2026
Yellow Tulip Inc is a vertically integrated European clean energy and smart infrastructure platform. We think like industrialists, not entrepreneurs seeking exits.
2025
Exec. Vice Chairman and Co-Founder, SVP of International Sales & Partnerships
Jul 2025
Cleanwatts Digital is a climate tech, pioneer in the development of energy management solutions that drive the energy transition through advanced technological solutions for the smart management of local energy assets. Our mission is to simplify, amplify, and accelerate this transition. At the heart of our offering is Cleanwatts™ OS, an operating system developed specifically to manage and optimize distributed energy assets—from renewable power plants and energy storage systems to electric vehicle chargers. Through this technology, we are able to significantly reduce energy costs, improve our customers energy security, and accelerate the decarbonization of the electricity grid. With this system, we develop Virtual Power Plants (VPPs), providing flexibility services to our customers, empowering their participation in energy markets, and to distribution system operators (DSOs), and we offer a complete Energy as a Service (EaaS) solution that eliminates the complexity and technical barriers associated with energy transition requirements and ESG compliance. We are committed to building a world where clean energy is truly decentralized, digital, and democratic.
2023
Advisory Board Member and JV Partner India
Sep 2023
NexTech is commercializing its patented, next-generation lithium-sulfur batteries (LSBs)
2022
Angel Investor
Oct 2022
We are an innovator of high temperature thermal energy storages for industrial applications and district heating. #sandbattery
Show all 39 entries ↓
Investment activity
2017–2022 · 17 investments
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