The Mumbai-based company will use the funds to expand its operations to 50 cities across India within two years, enhance technology, hire talent and invest in brand-building. It is currently active in 20 cities.
“These are tier I and tier II cities. Our market lies wherever there are independent homes. We’ll be expanding into cities like Jodhpur and markets like Chennai. We’re also focusing on significant expansion in the southern states, including Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, and Karnataka. We aim to expand into more cities in Rajasthan and Maharashtra,” chief executive Shreya Mishra told ET.
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Founded in 2015 by Mishra, Neeraj Jain, and Nikhil Nahar, SolarSquare is a B2C full-stack residential solar brand that designs, installs, and offers maintenance for five years post installation to its customers. It initially started as a business-to-business (B2B) company where it was doing solar for commercial corporate factories, but later pivoted to residential solar in 2021.
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“India is undergoing a massive solar revolution. Less than 1% of homes in India have solar power today, and we are far behind in residential solar penetration compared to countries like Germany, the US, and Australia. Being a tropical, sunny country with more than 300 days of sunlight, India definitely has a huge untapped potential,” she said. According to Mishra, the company also helps customers obtain all their government permits for solar installation and facilitates financing through a third-party financier. Earlier, the company intended to launch an in-house non-banking financial company (NBFC) to extend loans to residential solar buyers. However, it did not proceed with the plan.
“We didn’t see much value in offering our own loans, especially since public sector banks are offering loans at 10-11%, which is impossible to beat. Instead, we’ve developed technology that integrates with multiple financiers on the back end, allowing us to provide customers with loan approvals in just five minutes,” she added.
The company is also planning to make significant investments in building a tech stack for remote monitoring and diagnostics of residential solar systems.
“For the 20,000 homes powered by SolarSquare, our technology will enable us to monitor the electricity each home produces in real time, every minute. Additionally, this technology will allow us to diagnose any issues,” said Mishra.
The company has raised a total of $59.5 million to date.
In recent years, both climate-focused and general venture capital investors have shown increased interest in climate tech startups in India, driven by supportive policies and a growing consumer base.
Commenting on the investment, Rahul Taneja, partner, Lightspeed, said, “The clean energy transition has moved from ESG PowerPoint decks to consumers’ homes and SolarSquare is well on its way to making #hargharsolar.”
“Despite growing environmental consciousness, adopting solar remained complex for Indian households. SolarSquare’s full-stack approach of owning the entire customer experience has already set them apart and made the solar adoption process much simpler,” Mukul Arora, partner at Elevation Capital.
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