Solar financing firm Aerem on Monday said it has secured pre-Series A funding of $2.5 million (around Rs 19.5 crore) led by Blume Ventures.
Aerem plans to deploy the fresh proceeds to grow its loan book, build tech platform and expand leadership team.
Anand Jain founded Aerem as a full-stack solution in 2021 with a vision to build India’s first asset finance and quality platform for solar.
The startup addresses points of friction hindering adoption of rooftop solar for MSMEs.
“Aerem wants to democratize the adoption of rooftop solar and build a better, greener and sustainable future. Our innovative solartech platform includes asset assurance, which combined with financing from our in-house NBFC or partner banks enable significant reduction in power bills of MSMEs. We offer a fully digitalized, hassle free and seamless experience to MSMEs,” said Jain.
“Aerem provides end-to-end engagement and is ahead of the market by 1-2 years. Solar is in a sweet spot where macro (top down) and micro factors are incredibly aligned. This is extremely rare for any sector. India has targeted 280 GW of solar capacity and 50% of its energy requirement from clean energy by 2030,” said Ashish Fafadia, Partner, Blume Ventures.
Aerem said in a statement that it is aiming 20 million industrial MSMEs in India.
Founded in 2010 by Karthik Reddy and Sanjay Nath, Blume Ventures closed its debut fund in 2011 at Rs 100 crore (around $20 million). It closed its second fund in October 2016 at $60 million and the third fund last year.
The firm has backed more than 100 startups including TaxiForSure (acquired by Ola) and ZipDial (bought by Twitter). Its investments from the third fund include those in edtech startup Classplus, online aggregator of primary healthcare services HealthAssure, fashion rental and styling platform Stage3, SaaS-based browser testing platform LambdaTest, and agri-focused Jai Kisan.
Investment in renewable energy in India reached a record $14.5 billion in the last fiscal (2021-22), an increase of 125 per cent compared to FY2020-21 and 72 per cent over the pre-pandemic FY2019-20, a new report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) said.
