When Bo Lee talks about the future of energy, his tone is calm, deliberate, the kind of confidence that comes only from nearly two decades of riding the renewable roller coaster and his unshakeable belief in clean energy’s position in the energy future.
“I’ve been in the clean energy space since 2006,” he says matter-of-factly. “Come to think of it, that’s almost 20 years.”
Two decades of building, buying, and sometimes failing have forged Lee into a rare kind of founder, one who sees both the volatility and inevitability of the energy transition. Now, with Akku Energy Devices, Lee is betting that the next great leap in sustainable battery energy will come from chemistry and material mixes that are smarter, safer, more stable, durable, and cheaper.
From Wall Street to Solar Panels
Before he became an energy entrepreneur, Bo Lee was a finance man. He traded currencies and interest-rate swaps on Wall Street and helped American Express expand its international operations. Then he did what few corporate executives dare: he left.
“I bought into a food-processing company in Colorado,” he recalls with a laugh. “I had no experience — zero — but I asked the owner to let me stay a few weeks to observe before I decided to purchase or not, and I did. Within a year, I grew the company from about $7 million in sales to $29 million, employees from 36 to 130.”
That success funded his pivot into renewables. “I sold the food company and put half of the proceeds into real estate, half into clean energy,” he says. The first bet: a thin-film solar module manufacturer in Toledo, Ohio. It didn’t work out. “The technology and the manufacturing process were, and still are, excellent and relevant, but the economics for the finished product proved to be lacking. Still, I learned a lot.”
That blend of curiosity and perseverance, what Lee calls his “experimenting streak”, would define the rest of his entrepreneurial path.
A German Partnership, an American Dream
Lee’s latest venture began almost by accident. In 2022, Denver’s Office of Economic Development invited him to mentor a small German company, Akku Energie Systeme GmbH, seeking to expand to the U.S. The firm produced lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) batteries, a safer, cheaper, and longer-lasting alternative to the nickel-cobalt-manganese batteries that had dominated the industry for years.
“They’d been the exclusive battery supplier to the German Post Office for over a decade,” Lee explains. “Their foresight was incredible. Twelve years ago, they bet on LFP while everyone else was using NMC. Now 90 percent of the world’s storage batteries are LFP, and an increasing amount of power batteries are also moving in that direction.”
What began as mentorship turned into partnership. Together, they founded Akku Energy Devices, combining German engineering and American market savvy. The company now supplies batteries to major logistics clients, including DHL, UPS, FedEx, and Amazon, and is scouting locations for a U.S. manufacturing facility.
“The plan,” Lee says, “is to build not just an assembly line, but an entire ecosystem — R&D, production, sales, and service — all based here in the States.”
The Chemistry of Resilience
LFP batteries may not sound revolutionary, but in the energy storage world, they’re quietly transformative. They don’t catch fire, last up to 8,000 charge cycles, and rely on materials sourced from politically stable regions.
“It’s about thermal stability and longevity,” Lee explains. “If you charge and discharge once a day, that’s 22 years of life. The feedstock is cheaper and more commonly available. Although lower in energy density, for storage applications, it’s a clear winner.”
That practicality, incremental progress, not moonshots, is Lee’s hallmark. “Startups often chase revolutionary technology,” he says. “But human discovery in technology is mostly incremental. Relevance and practicality matter more than chasing the unicorn.”
On Loneliness, Leadership, and Learning
Despite his calm exterior, Lee doesn’t romanticize entrepreneurship. “There are a lot of lonely moments,” he says. “You can talk to people, read everything, but at the end of the day, you have to make the call yourself.”
He describes the early years of 14-hour workdays and four hours of sleep, “stressful, but exciting.” Over time, his leadership style evolved. “In the beginning, I believed too much in myself. I made decisions alone and relied on myself for execution. Now I try to be more inclusive — invite participation, encourage ownership.”
Asked what has changed most in his definition of success, Lee pauses. “At first, it was travel, freedom, money,” he says. “Now it’s about making something meaningful happen and helping others succeed, too.”
Persistence Over Perfection
Lee’s advice for fellow founders is simple, if not easy: persistence.
“You have to identify the right target, build your support system, and then stay the course,” he says. “If you jump in without passion, it’ll be a miserable journey no matter how much you know. But if you believe deeply, if you’re stubborn enough, you’ll find a way.”
He’s quick to add that founders should take care of their personal foundations too. “Figure out how to support yourself and your family before you jump,” he warns. “If you don’t, it’ll pull you down.”
As for the inevitable naysayers? Lee smiles. “People will tell you that you do not have all the ingredients, or you’re a jack of all trades and master of none. Maybe for a while, that’s true. But experimentation, persistence in learning, and pursuit will lead you to what you’re meant to master.”
Building for Impact
For Lee, success now means impact, economic, environmental, and human. Akku Energy Devices aims to fill gaps in the market with transportable, swappable battery systems, as well as durable, scalable, stationary storage solutions for residential, commercial, and industrial applications.
“If we execute well,” he says, “our impact could be huge. Not just in profits, but in building energy independence and stability.”
And true to form, Lee is already looking beyond his own company’s success. “I want to create products and opportunities that didn’t exist before,” he says. “Something lasting, something that makes energy cleaner, safer, cheaper, and more reliable for everyone.”
A Founder’s Formula
When pressed to summarize what drives him, Lee distills decades of experience into a single line: “Listen, learn, decide, and persist.”
In an industry defined by volatility, Bo Lee’s steadiness may just be Akku Energy Devices’ greatest asset.
About Akku Energy Devices
Akku Energy Devices is a U.S.–based battery manufacturer specializing in lithium-iron-phosphate (LFP) technology. Building on a decade-long partnership with Germany’s postal service, Akku delivers power and storage battery solutions for logistics, residential, commercial, and industrial, and grid-scale applications. Learn more at akkuenergydevices.com.
