OpenSolar to boost online PV platform capability with $22 million injection

OpenSolar announced it has raised more than $22 million to accelerate the development of its solar design and proposal platform, providing greater levels of customisation and new capabilities to solar contractors who access the free-to-use platform in more than 130 countries.

The Series B funding round was led by Telstra Ventures, the venture capital arm of telecommunications giant Telstra, with participation from Danish sustainability fund 2150 and existing investors including United States-based private equity firm Titan Grove and solar entrepreneurs Alec Guettel and Howard Wenger, the head of American solar energy company SunPower.

Sydney-based OpenSolar’s platform provides end-to-end digital design, sales and management software to solar contractors. The company said the digital toolkit integrates data from more than 75 hardware, finance and services providers to generate installer-branded quotes that detail solar system size, optimal orientation and design, and savings on current bills.

The platform allows installers to generate quotes, supported with visuals, from a smartphone, tablet or internet-connected laptop.

OpenSolar co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Adam Pryor said the new capital will support continued investment in the platform to extend it functionality, providing greater levels of customisation and new capabilities to solar contractors.

“The world’s transition to solar energy represents one of the greatest wealth creation opportunities in history, and our commitment to help local solar installers participate in that change is stronger than ever,” he said. “This funding allows us to double down on developing an ever-expanding set of software tools that increase their growth and profitability.”

In addition to the opportunities to expand the capabilities of the platform, OpenSolar said the funding will allow it to increase the number of partnerships it has around the world, earning fees in exchange for connecting solar contractors to products and service providers.

OpenSolar co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Birch said the switch to solar is predicted to generate more than $3 trillion in value by the end of the decade and the company is ideally positioned to take advantage of this opportunity.

“We started OpenSolar in Australia which is the most advanced solar market in the world, where you pay an extremely low price per watt and get your system installed within one to three weeks,” he said. “With a leading position now in the Australian market, we’ve introduced much of that speed and efficiency to the rest of the world through our software.”

Telstra Ventures Partner Albert Bielinko described OpenSolar’s offering as “the world’s leading solar design and sales platform.”

“We are firm believers in this unique business model that’s free to the installer and also highly valuable to hardware and service providers,” he said. “OpenSolar’s clients are raving fans who use their open platform to dramatically increase the number of installations they can perform. It lets them achieve more with less.”

This latest financing round brings OpenSolar’s total funding to date to $37 million.