Luis Medina Rivas

Post-pitch story

Luis Medina Rivas pitched Tether on the show's "Bodyguard of the Grid" episode — and no, it's not the crypto company. This Tether uses AI to coordinate electric vehicle charging across thousands of cars, turning them into a giant distributed battery that helps stabilize the power grid. The investors on the show funded it, and the idea has only looked smarter since. In June 2025, Tether raised a €1.3 million pre-seed round led by Draper B1 and K Fund, with several climate-focused funds participating, earmarked for growing the team and expanding into Nordic markets. Rivas pointedly tied the raise to the April 2025 blackout that knocked out power across Spain and Portugal — exactly the kind of grid failure Tether's virtual battery is built to prevent. Founded in Barcelona's Norrsken climate hub, the company is still active and hiring. From a pitch about the grid's future to a funded company racing to fix it, Tether's story is still being written — literally, one charged car at a time.