Mumbai-based energy platform SolarSquare on Friday said it has secured seed funding of $4 million (around Rs 30.8 crore) led by Good Capital, with participation from US-based Lowercarbon Capital, Symphony Asia and Nithin Kamath’s Rainmatter.
The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its India footprint and also build technology for scaling.
The round also saw participation from investors like Better Capital and Climate Angels, with angels including Maninder Gulati (Global Chief Strategy Officer, OYO); Ashish Goel (CEO, Urban Ladder) and Amit Kumar Agarwal, Akhil Gupta and Saurabh Garg, (founders of NoBroker).
Founded by Neeraj Jain and Nikhil Nahar in 2015, SolarSquare was rolled out as a business-to-business (B2B) solar company bootstrapping the business to Rs 100 crore annual topline in five years.
Jain is an IIT Bombay graduate and ex-investment banker from Deutsche Bank, while Nahar is a former R&D executive from Panasonic. In 2020, another IIT Bombay graduate and serial entrepreneur, Shreya Mishra, joined SolarSquare as the third co-founder.
SolarSquare is a home-energy brand which designs, installs and finances rooftop solar systems for homes. The company claims that in less than two years of its foray into residential solar space, it has become India’s fastest growing residential solar brand having solarized over 3,000 homes and housing societies.
Currently the startup is spread across Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Bengaluru, Telangana and Delhi-NCR.
“Each home that goes solar with us saves Rs 48,000 on average in electricity bills and offsets 4 metric tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere. That’s equivalent to planting 60 trees. Our mission is to drive mass adoption of solar amongst homes such that it becomes a staple household product," said Shreya Mishra, chief executive officer at SolarSquare.
Meanwhile, Good Capital is a seed-to-Series A stage focused venture capital firm that backs B2B and B2C startups in India and the US.
“Climate change issues are real and pressing. As a firm we are committed to partnering with the best-in-class entrepreneurs who are addressing challenges in this market. We are thrilled to partner with Shreya, Neeraj and Nikhil as they set out to build the leading residential solar brand in India," said Rohan Malhotra, Managing Partner at Good Capital.
The investment in SolarSquare also marks investor Chris Sacca’s Lowercarbon Capital’s first investment in India, the statement said.
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.
