We’re excited to introduce you to Prutha Atre, a Senior Associate at Silicon Foundry. Since she joined us this Spring in San Francisco, Prutha has been an integral part of the Silicon Foundry team. With a strong background in engineering and business from the University of Mumbai and Dartmouth College, as well as a career spanning investment banking, venture capital, and technology transfer, Prutha brings valuable expertise from her extensive knowledge, entrepreneurial spirit, and driving passion for the energy sector.
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Before coming to Silicon Foundry, you worked in corporate innovation at a venture studio. Can you tell us a bit about your experience and what key learnings you gained about effectively sourcing, commercializing, and integrating emerging technologies within large enterprises?
My time at Rose Rock Bridge was incredibly enlightening because it sits at the intersection of Fortune 500 companies, academia, and tech-led economic development with a centralized focus on energy. The Fortune 500’s innovation priorities included changes to emissions control, asset monitoring, and enhanced geothermal. Those were all new areas for me, but they led to a lot of learning around how these important industries function and what innovations move the needle.
The interesting challenge with these problem statements was that there are not many commercially viable technologies out there for these problems. So, I looked more upstream in the innovation pipelines at R&D in universities and labs. There, I built a network of 40 North American universities to identify commercialization-ready IP. My team selected R&D projects aligned with corporate innovation priorities, focusing on those ready for piloting and market translation through customer-informed workflows. The right research could be scaled outside of the lab, piloted with these corporations, and developed with the corporations’ insights, funding, and assets. That skill set was very important because it gives you exclusive insight into what is coming next.
By evaluating current in-field innovations and how they perform or benchmark against one another, we can link these advancements to corporate strategy. Specifically, how they drive revenue growth, reduce costs, and ultimately maximize shareholder value for Fortune 500 companies.
From your perspective, what new opportunities does AI introduce in energy technology?
There’s a big question mark on what an AI-first enterprise looks like, especially within energy, but here are a few key opportunities being explored.
One of the most pressing challenges in the energy sector is an aging workforce. As experienced employees retire, there’s a growing gap in hands-on knowledge transfer, particularly as newer workers take on risky field jobs within energy. A promising solution lies in combining AI-powered XR technologies to deliver immersive, scalable training in a virtual environment that equips the next generation with critical skills and real-time guidance.
Another opportunity lies in AI’s role in accurately forecasting energy demand and weather conditions, thereby improving grid reliability. As our grid becomes more complex with multiple combinations of energy sources, AI’s role in predicting energy demand will become increasingly important.
Lastly, I would say asset monitoring, which can be obtained through insights from existing data, and how best to leverage that to improve operations. That is something that many oil and gas companies are currently exploring, such as AI and vision technologies, whether through static camera infrastructure or drone-mounted cameras, both of which are becoming increasingly popular for monitoring the structural integrity of midstream assets or methane emissions from oil and gas fields.
You helped co-write the article, “AI x LDES: The Control Layer That Will Make or Break the Grid.” What led you to explore that specific intersection of industry-specific AI application, and why do you believe the intelligence layer is so critical to the future of the grid?
One of the most interesting projects I was brought into when I joined Silicon Foundry was The Collectives program, specifically The Collective // Energy + Utilities. TC//E+U is an annual membership community designed to convene senior leaders across the energy and utilities ecosystem for curated collaboration, including in-person gatherings, real-time insights, tailored research, startup access, and expert consultations powered by Kearney and Silicon Foundry. Included in the membership are the Assemblies, emphasizing peer exchange with interactive roundtables, curated fireside chats, hands-on workshops, and live demos from the top startups.
One key innovation area shared by participating corporates in TC// E+U is Long Duration Energy Storage (LDES). While LDES has been widely explored from a materials and hardware standpoint, its AI applications remain largely untapped. However, emerging startups and R&D efforts show promising progress in areas like novel battery chemistry discovery, dispatch optimization, and predictive maintenance. These AI-driven use cases can significantly improve the economics of LDES by enabling stacked revenue streams—making projects more financially viable and attractive to investors.
What drew you to Silicon Foundry?
The initial draw was that I always knew I wanted to be in Silicon Valley because of the opportunities around the venture capital ecosystem. I first stumbled upon Silicon Foundry’s website through a LinkedIn post, and was incredibly intrigued by the breadth of corporates the firm works with, from BP to Estée Lauder. I wanted the opportunity to have exposure to a broader innovation ecosystem and help shape corporate strategy. That’s exactly the opportunity that SiF offered. It was enlightening to see how the need for technology unites every industry, from oil to cosmetics.
What opportunities do you see at Silicon Foundry to expand and diversify your current interests?
A notable opportunity is definitely the openness and flexibility of the leadership, where you can inform the kind of projects you want to work on, or actually raise your hand and express keen interest. You can openly advocate for yourself, and that advocacy is accepted by the leadership, something that I very much value.
Secondly, with every project, you are working with multiple innovation stakeholders: startups, investors, and academics. It’s a mix of perspectives that come to the table, and it offers a well-rounded, often cross-industry understanding of a sector. It’s one of the most powerful learning experiences I’ve had.
Third, I love being in the office because of the dynamic energy. With all sorts of different people and backgrounds, you can easily network around this area, and I think that’s personally gratifying to be in such a bustling ecosystem.
What’s on the horizon for things you want to accomplish at Silicon Foundry?
One of the projects I have jumped into centers around the growing role of AI in the enterprise, and how the organization can truly become AI-first. Our goal is to develop an AI-first lean canvas to help evaluate strategy for the startup. It would tell the enterprise where they stand on the AI spectrum and what it will take for them to be receiving value from becoming AI-first. I’m excited to accomplish our initial set of deliverables that will establish the roadmap for this enterprise. With this Member, I’m particularly interested in developing original thought leadership frameworks that can be applied to the broader group of members and prospects.
Additionally, I am keen to lean into the energy practice. The Collectives is an amazing offering, and with the Assembly hosted in Amsterdam, we’re broadening our ecosystem to energy and utility companies across Europe. I’m excited to see how that community of Members develops.
I am also excited to work with the broader team at SiF to create startup landscapes, which is crucial across our work. Since nearly every engagement demands input from frontier startups or expert voices, there’s an opportunity to create scalable platforms that make this process easier and more effective for the entire team. Supporting that kind of ecosystem-building is something I’m deeply motivated to contribute to.
