SAN FRANCISCO : Aurora Solar, the industry’s leading software platform for solar sales and design, today announced it has closed a $250 million Series C funding round led by Coatue, with follow-on participation from existing investors ICONIQ Capital, Energize Ventures, and Fifth Wall.
In just over two years, Aurora Solar has raised more than $320M. Today’s fundraise underscores the remarkable shift to renewable energy happening in energy markets around the globe, with solar being the fastest-growing source of energy over the past decade.
This growth translates into jobs—by 2030, in the United States alone, the solar industry will need to grow from 230,000 to 900,000 people in order to meet President Biden’s goal of carbon-free power by 2035, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Software is the key to making solar installations more affordable and accessible for both residential and commercial use cases.
Aurora enables solar companies to streamline the solar project lifecycle by making it easy to integrate disparate data sources, design accurate solar installations, and automate complex workflows.
Using Aurora, solar professionals can accurately determine how many solar panels will fit on a property, forecast how much energy the solar system will produce, calculate how many batteries are needed for backup power, and show how much money their client will save by switching to solar.
“Our mission is to create a future of solar energy for all. The only way to reach that goal is to make it easy for solar professionals to design and sell solar remotely, and to make it affordable for consumers to understand and access the benefits of solar,” said Sam Adeyemo, co-founder and CRO of Aurora Solar.
“This funding will help us accelerate our vision, as more solar companies choose to grow their business using digital and remote solutions rather than manual ones.”
Since 2010, the install costs for photovoltaic solar have already dropped by 70%, and reducing soft costs (i.e., non-hardware costs associated with going solar) through digital solutions like Aurora offers the biggest opportunity to continue cutting down the price of both residential and commercial projects.
“Residential solar is set to grow significantly over the next decade,” said Jaimin Rangwalla, Senior Managing Director at Coatue. “Aurora has the potential to unlock an inflection in this growth through lowering soft costs, such as installation and permitting.
We believe Chris and Sam have proven themselves to be exceptional operators and have built the leading software business in this category. We are excited to partner with them on the next phase of this journey.”
“We see an incredible opportunity to expand the market for solar software and make it accessible to anyone on the team, from sales and marketing to design and operations and more,” added Chris Hopper, co-founder and CEO of Aurora Solar.
“Working firsthand with solar professionals in communities around the globe has given us a front row seat to the explosion in the solar market and the economic opportunities it is creating for more jobs, lower costs, and a greener future for us all.”
Aurora Solar will use the investment to expand its product roadmap, continue to attract more talent across all teams, expand sales and customer support, and build its leadership team to help scale the company.
About Coatue
Coatue is one of the largest technology investment platforms in the world with more than $35 billion in assets under management. Our dedicated team of engineers and data scientists work closely with investment professionals to add value to founders and executive teams in our portfolio. With venture, growth and public funds, we back entrepreneurs from around the globe and at every stage of growth.
Some of our private investments have included Airtable, Ant Financial, Anaplan, ByteDance, Chime, Databricks, DoorDash, Instacart, Meituan, Snap, Snowflake and Spotify.
About Aurora Solar Inc.
Aurora Solar is a fast growing technology company that enables solar professionals to remotely design and sell solar and storage projects. Aurora Solar was named Rising Star Company by S&P Global Platts in 2020.
To date, over 5 million solar projects have been designed in Aurora globally. For more information, visit www.aurorasolar.com and follow us on Twitter @AuroraSolarInc.
Source: itnewsonline
