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Building Through the Dark: How Reactive Technologies Spent 5+ Years Creating a New Grid Measurement Category

Most founders talk about moving fast and breaking things. Marc Borrett, CEO and co-founder of Reactive Technologies, spent five and a half years before generating meaningful revenue. His company fills critical gaps in the energy transition by measuring phenomena on power grids that have never been measured before—and he had to convince some of the world’s most conservative customers to trust technology that didn’t fit into any existing budget category.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Marc shared how his semiconductor background led to an accidental discovery that became the foundation for an 80 million dollar company, and why building in the energy sector requires a fundamentally different kind of patience than Silicon Valley typically demands.

The Accidental Discovery That Built a Company

Reactive Technologies didn’t set out to measure grid stability. The company’s origin story reveals how the best category-creating insights often emerge from unexpected places. Marc and his team, all from the telecom sector, initially wanted to explore whether the power grid could function as a communications channel.

“We did a first project with a power grid operator in the UK, where we said we would send data through the entirety of the UK grid,” Marc explains. “And to do that, we had to build something to create that data signal. And then we had to create some devices to hear and decode that signal out of all of the noise of all of the generation assets on the grid.”

But when they analyzed their results, something bothered their engineers. The signal didn’t reach all receiver devices at exactly the same time. “When they looked into it, they found that there was something that was inhibiting our signal getting through the grid. And that thing that was inhibiting it was the stability of the grid,” Marc reveals. “So, basically, we found that the more stable the grid was, it was harder for us to get our message through where the grid was weaker and less stable. It was easier for us to get our message through.”

This observation led to a pivotal conversation. “We went back to the grid operator, and we said, look, we could turn this on its head and we could measure stability in real time. Would that be of interest? And that was really where we actually got started with measuring grid stability.”

Why Energy Infrastructure Needs New Measurement Tools

The energy industry has operated relatively unchanged for 120 years. Marc uses a compelling thought experiment to illustrate this: “If you brought back from the depths of history Alexander Graham Bell, who obviously invented the phone, and let’s say, Nikolai Tesla, and you gave Alexander Graham Bell a mobile phone, and you showed Nikolay Tesla the power industry, Alexander Graham Bell would not recognize what you’ve given him as a phone, but obviously, Nikolai Tesla would have a fairly good understanding of what was actually still going on in the power industry.”

This stability worked when generation sources were predictable—coal, gas, and nuclear. But the energy transition changes everything. “Those kind of stable generation sources are being replaced by things that are much more intermittent. A solar farm only produces power when the sun’s out. A wind farm only produces power when it’s windy,” Marc notes.

The existing toolkit, based on models rather than measurements, can’t keep pace. “Those models are no longer keeping up with the reality of how the power system is behaving. So there is a need for measurement to go in real time measurement to give grid operators the best chance of keeping the lights on, but also changing from coal or gas or fossil fuel power stations to 100% renewable green energy sources.”

The Five-Year Path to Product-Market Fit

For founders accustomed to rapid iteration cycles, Marc’s timeline offers a sobering reality check. When asked how long it took from founding to generating core revenue, his answer is stark: “In the order of five and a half years.”

The extended timeline wasn’t due to lack of effort or poor execution. It reflected the fundamental nature of selling into critical infrastructure. The first conversations with grid operators weren’t about value propositions or pricing—they were about existential risk.

“The first kind of conversations we had in the very early days were all about, are you sure you’re not going to black out the power grid if we allow you to do this, we don’t want to have any problems,” Marc recalls. “So how can you prove to us if we allow you to do this measurement, you’re not going to upset damage temporarily or permanently destroy the power system?”

This technical scrutiny was intense but necessary. “It did take a high degree of technical persuasion, justification, explanation just to be able to get a first small scale pilot started,” Marc notes. The silver lining? “As long as you’ve got enough gas in the tank to ride that through and come out on the other end and you’ve got a genuinely helpful, positive technology, it does mean that there’s another, those same barriers apply to anyone else.”

Building Trust in Conservative Markets

When selling technology that could theoretically cause blackouts, traditional B2B sales tactics don’t apply. Marc emphasizes that trust becomes the only currency that matters with risk-averse customers.

“The only way that we, I think we’re able to do it is really from having a very credible technical team,” Marc explains. “You know, we have a very, I would say, high calibre engineering capability and at some point that quality starts to become evident because, you know, you’re able to back it up, you’re able to share data, you’re able to show the physics of what you’re trying to do.”

The technical credibility had to be paired with staying power. “You’ve got to have the staying power to keep those conversations going, to keep that interest going. So you’ve got to also be addressing a problem and that problem has got to be getting bigger.”

In Reactive Technologies’ case, timing worked in their favor. The problem they were addressing started at 16 million pounds annually for their first customer. “Over the next five years, as we were working with them and we were going from a small scale pilot to a bigger scale to then a national scale, that problem grew fivefold. So 16 million turned into 32 million and eventually got to somewhere north of 250 million in that time period.”

The Psychology of Long-Term Category Building

Building a company over multiple years without meaningful revenue requires a particular psychological makeup. When asked where he learned that level of patience, Marc’s response is candid about the difficulty.

“It is tough and it is bleak and it is lonely,” he admits. “You know, I’m not going to start crying but it is genuinely difficult. But you have to believe and as long as you know you’ve got the right solution to the right problem then that is the fire that you’ve got to keep alight and that’s the fire that you got to stoke.”

The belief has to be grounded in reality, not just optimism. Marc emphasizes being close to every aspect of the business: “If you’re close enough to every part of your business, if you’re close enough to the product side, you’re close enough to the sales side, you’re close enough to the marketing side, the customer side, the team side, you are the one that actually has got the best view of what it takes to actually get to the next milestone or get the funding closed or get the next customer over the line.”

This hands-on involvement becomes crucial during the darkest periods. “You’ve got to believe in yourself to do that, even though when it does get dark, you obviously doubt whether you’re doing the right thing.”

Fundraising for Multi-Year Timelines

Raising over 80 million dollars to build category-creating infrastructure requires patient capital. Marc credits his success partly to investors who had backed his previous semiconductor company, which became publicly listed. Their experience gave them confidence in his ability to execute long-term visions.

But even with experienced investors, fundraising requires discipline. “The old adages, only raise money when you don’t need it. It’s got to be that. And also expect that it will take you twice as long,” Marc advises. “When I speak to other startups and they say, you know, we’ve added 30, 40, 50% to, I think you’ve got to be more conservative, you’ve got to go early and have enough in the tank where you don’t believe you will actually have to go to.”

Strategic thinking about cap table construction matters more in long-cycle businesses. “You need to have always, I think, a little bit of a balance between having some strategic investors who can help you with that go to market, maybe in countries or regions that you don’t then necessarily need to staff for yourself. But you need to counterbalance those with strong financial investors who will want to ensure that if you have a strategic or strategics on board, that they’re kept honest.”

Marketing in Standards-Driven Industries

Reactive Technologies’ marketing approach reflects the conservative nature of their customers. Rather than focusing on demand generation or growth hacking, the company positions itself as the technical standard.

“General approach for us is really to achieve sort of the best practice solution,” Marc explains. “We need to make sure that the solutions we offer, you know, if you imagine a risk dial for a customer, we need to move that dial from. We’re not the risky innovative solution that might cost your job. If you go with us with a proven technology solution that delivers the measurements that you need to run your grid.”

This requires engagement with industry standards bodies and technical organizations. “Marketing focus is to be part of that and to make sure that we explain very clearly why our solution works and why there is not, in our view, a better way to do it.”

The Vision: Power Grids as Scientific Instruments

Looking three to five years ahead, Marc’s vision extends beyond measurement to fundamental scientific understanding. He draws an analogy to scientific instruments that have advanced human knowledge.

“You sort of chronicle how we’ve evolved our scientific understanding based on how well we are at building tools to understand science. So, you know, whether that’s a telescope to look at the universe or whether it’s a microscope to look at organisms or other particles, the better the microscope or the better the telescope, the more you can understand and the more you can evolve your approaches to challenges.”

Reactive Technologies aims to become that telescope for power grids. “We want to understand how the power grid actually works in a way that conventionally hasn’t been able to be understood before. We’re seeing levels of change on the power system that haven’t been seen before, and we want to try and evolve our telescope to look deeper and further into the power grid and to really see things that others haven’t seen before.”

This deeper understanding will unlock new opportunities. “That will, in turn, we believe, open up further opportunities for better services, to make better decisions, to enable more renewable energy to run safely on the power grid.”

Building new categories in critical infrastructure isn’t for founders seeking quick wins or viral growth. It requires technical credibility, extraordinary patience, and the ability to maintain conviction through years of incremental progress. But for those willing to embrace the timeline, the opportunity to fundamentally reshape how essential systems operate offers rewards that extend far beyond typical startup exits.