Dealflow | April 23, 2020

Acumen backs Solaris Offgrid’s pay-as-you-go solar software

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, April 23 – Early pay-as-you-go solar ventures had to manage everything from sourcing, selling and distributing equipment, to collecting payments and providing customer financing. Now that low-income, energy poor customers have shown they will pay for solar services, companies like Solaris Offgrid are taking on some of those tasks.

Solaris’ software manages billing and customer engagement on a subscription basis for clients including Sun King and BioLite.

Solaris “reduces solar energy companies’ operational pain points from cost to inefficiency, enabling them to reach more low-income customers, increasing their chances of scale and catalyzing the growth of the off-grid energy sector at large,” said Acumen, which invested an undisclosed sum in the company.

Compass also invested.

Other solar-services companies include Angaza, which partners with hardware manufacturers to make solar tech pay-as-you-go enabled, and SunFunder, which provides financing for solar energy providers so they don’t have to use their own capital for customer financing (see, “SunFunder secures $42.5 million for its largest energy access fund).