Our team
Christopher M. Ihler
Co-Founder & Principal, NexEdge
Co-founder and principal at NexEdge, building a national edge-compute platform purpose-built for AI-inference workloads — first 30 MW dual-metro platform under development across Colorado’s Front Range, with additional metros in pre-development.
- Co-Founder & Principal, NexEdge — multi-metro edge-compute platforms for AI inference
- Founder & CEO, Archetype Energy — middle-market solar/storage developer; $500M financing partnership with Green Bridge Energy (2024); ~$300M portfolio under negotiation for exit
- Partner, Climate Commodities — commodity merchant and development accelerator capitalizing the clean-energy transition, AI infrastructure, and national defense
- Principal, Tek Innova USA — anchoring the US launch of an established 15-year, six-country telecom and fiber-construction practice, timed to accelerating US carrier fiber demand
- Founded and exited EnergyLink, a national NAESCO-accredited ESCO/EPC scaled to 90 employees
- Delivered 180+ solar, storage, and generator projects across 23 states for military, municipal, utility, hospital, university, and corporate end users
- Completed 600+ Level-3 ASHRAE audits and 200+ deep C&I retrofits
- 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience across commercial real estate, C&I ESCO services, grid-edge renewable and storage EPC, project finance, and grid-edge power development
- Power-system design at the grid edge; PPA/ESA structuring across utility, C&I, and behind-the-meter markets
- Project-finance underwriting; regulatory fluency in PURPA QF classification, FERC filings, and state interconnection
- Hybrid-powered, hyperscale-ready data-center development — the playbook now applied across NexEdge
Education
- M.S. in Real Estate, University of Denver, 2019; Daniels and Spratlen Scholar
- B.S. in Business Administration – Finance, Colorado State University, 2012; Kershner Scholar and Dean’s List
Ross Hardin
Co-Founder & Principal, NexEdge
Co-founder and principal at NexEdge, leading capital formation, acquisitions, and operations for a national edge-compute platform purpose-built for AI-inference workloads. Brings a real estate and capital markets foundation of 225+ transactions totaling more than $2.4 billion to the development of siteable, interconnection-ready capacity at the edge of major metros.
- Co-Founder & Principal, NexEdge, leading capital formation, acquisitions, and operations for multi-metro edge-compute platforms serving AI inference
- Managing Partner, Eagle Road Partners, a real estate-focused holding and advisory firm executing acquisitions, dispositions, and capital formation across multifamily, commercial, and asset-heavy sectors
- Partner, Hardin Holdings, a family investment holding company that also provides CFO advisory services to companies in the real estate, professional services, and technology space.
- Directed 225+ capital transactions totaling more than $2.4 billion across acquisitions, dispositions, debt facilities, and institutional equity partnerships
- Closed a record 57 multifamily transactions in a single year, generating $400M+ in capital proceeds through disciplined underwriting and lender execution
- Advised on high-value institutional exits including Overland Property Group’s $140M sale to Magnetar Capital and Rentgrata’s $32M sale to Opiniion
- Achieved 40%+ IRR on distressed-asset turnarounds, resolving $15M in deficit funding and closing 32 transactions exceeding $250M
- Scaled a Denver law firm from startup to Inc. 5000 honoree in under three years, growing revenue and profit more than 10x
- Real estate capital markets, capital stack optimization, and institutional equity and debt structuring across multifamily and commercial assets
- Transaction structuring and execution, from sourcing and underwriting through negotiation and close, with deep lender and institutional investor relationships
- Mergers, acquisitions, and post-close integration, with synergy realization typically achieved within 90 days
- Operational systems and leadership, including EOS implementation to align teams, sharpen accountability, and drive scalable growth
Why NexEdge
- AI-inference demand is exploding while the utility-side power queue is constrained — siteable, interconnection-ready capacity is needed at the edge of major metros
- Career has progressed deliberately toward that convergence: from BTM energy and HVAC, to utility-scale grid-edge generation, to multi-metro data-center platforms
- Brings the leadership and vision to build NexEdge into a category-defining platform at the intersection of investment-grade energy offtake and accelerating edge AI compute
Regional Partners
Denver
Denver delivers a high‑performance, multi‑site AI inference platform engineered for rapid deployment, low‑latency reach across the Front Range, and scalable MW capacity for enterprise‑grade workloads.
Detroit
Detroit provides a 25 MW, bi‑county AI inference fabric spanning five interconnected sites, purpose‑built for low‑latency serving, memory‑dense hardware, and resilient metro‑scale deployment.
Texas
Texas offers a transmission‑advantaged, ERCOT‑aligned development landscape with strong interconnection optionality and site‑ready potential for large‑scale solar, wind, storage, and data center deployment.
St. Louis
Coming Soon
Atlanta
Coming Soon