Aurora Solar, a startup that develops software for solar installers and financiers, has raised $50 million in a Series B funding round led by Iconiq Growth, along with existing investors Energize Ventures, Fifth Wall, and Pear VC. This brings the company’s total investment to more than $70 million.
Aurora is helping to shift the solar industry from manual and in-person processes to doing everything online. Its software lets solar installers perform remote solar shading analysis, design solar and storage rooftop systems, forecast energy generation, calculate savings, and produce sales proposals with financing choices. Vendors including SunPower, Momentum Solar, Black & Veatch, and Namaste Solar are working with Aurora, according to its website.
Solar stocks have had a strong 2020. And Array Technologies’ initial public offering along, with Joe Biden’s potential $2 billion climate plan, will drive capital across the solar market stack in 2021. Other renewable energy software startups winning venture funding this year include Terabase and Station A.
It took a pandemic, but the U.S. residential solar (and storage) industry has finally figured out how to lower customer acquisition costs, by moving everything online. BloombergNEF is confident that Americans will install a record 3 GW of solar on their homes this year and 3.6 GW will be installed in 2021.
The combination of online sales strategies and a new set of homebound, energy-curious customers has enabled the market to grow 22% in a cataclysmic year. The pandemic put resiliency at the forefront of people’s minds and accelerated adoption of digital sales practices.
Over the course of this strange year, American residential solar companies claimed they could weather the Covid-19 storm with software, remote selling and new online strategies. It turns out they were right.
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