Dr. Tom Buttgenbach, Ph.D.

Our Founder

Dr. Tom Buttgenbach is a visionary leader at the forefront of the energy transition. His most recent venture, Avantus (formerly known as “8minute Solar Energy “and “8minutenergy”), is one of the largest and most successful solar and energy storage companies in the US, driving the cost of clean energy down while making it the most reliable form of energy generation. Under Tom’s leadership, Avantus secured over $10 Billion in power purchase agreements and project financings. With over 30 GW of solar and 90 GWh of energy storage, capable of powering the homes of more than 20 million Americans day and night, Avantus had one of the largest clean energy portfolios in the U.S., before he sold it to KKR in mid-2024.

Tom, a physicist by training, invented more than 40 clean energy patents and built the team at Avantus to achieve many industry firsts and records. Among his industry milestones, Avantus became the first company in the U.S. to beat fossil fuel power prices with the Springbok 2 Solar Farm that became operational in 2016. The 800 MW Mount Signal solar cluster held the record as the largest solar project in the U.S. for over a decade, and Avantus set record-low solar energy prices at less than $0.03 per kilowatt-hour— a benchmark that still stands today.

At 1st Avenue Capital Tom is incubating new ventures with a common theme: accelerate the clean energy transition and democratize clean energy for a prosperous future for all. He and his teams leverage advanced technology and software, including AI, with the goal to aggressively drive the cost of clean energy down and make it widely accessible to all communities around the world while ensuring the protection of our global climate. These ventures tackle major issues: from communities suffering from expensive and often unreliable power burning fossil fuels building resilient distributed energy systems to supplying clean power feeding the massive demand growth from the digital transformation of our economy.

Prior to founding Avantus, Tom gained valuable experience in real estate development, investment banking, and management consulting at McKinsey & Company. He holds a Ph.D. in Physics and Astronomy from Caltech, where he was a Fulbright Scholar. His groundbreaking doctoral research led to the development of a superconducting chip submillimeter receiver, enabling the first discovery of neutral atomic carbon outside the Milky Way galaxy.

A dedicated environmental steward, he serves on the Green Advisory Board of the California League of Conservation Voters and the Board of Directors for the Los Angeles Business Council. For his leadership, Tom was named Entrepreneur of the Year for Greater Los Angeles by Ernst & Young in 2020 and recognized as a Visionary by the L.A. Times in 2022.

Tom lives in Santa Monica with his family and is an accomplished pilot.