Sweden based solar power company SunRoof has raised €4.5 million ($5.4 million) in a seed extension round from a host of investors. Its ambitous aim is to become the 'largest' energy marketplace in Europe and use its vast network of solar homes to create a virtual power plant.
The company's flagship product SunRoof combines roof tiles with monocrystalline PV cells, and it claims to be making the 'most powerful' solar roofs, per sq. mtr. anywhere in the world, while keeping costs low. In August 2020, it acquired renewable energy supporting software company Redlogger to create a platform to sell surplus energy generated by SunRoof solar cells back to the grid, to other customers and to companies interested in renewable energy.
Management believes SunRoof with its Redlogger technology is set to rival and outperform Tesla's Autobidder platform in the US, which is a trading platform allowing customers, operators and regulators to generate revenue from power and energy services.
SunRoof plans to use its latest round of financing to develop its energy trading and management system, and to further scale into new and existing regions including Sweden, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and into the US via pilot projects.
It will also be looking at expanding its team to having a headcount of more than 100 members by the end of 2021 across all business sectors—excluding installers, after having added 50 new positions in the past 6 months.
"SunRoof was founded to make the move to renewable energy not only easy, but highly cost-effective without ever having to sacrifice on features or design," said SunRoof CEO Lech Kaniuk. "We've already grown more than 500% year-on-year and will use the latest funding to double down on growth. All while further developing our end-to-end solar energy service that will see SunRoof become Europe's largest energy marketplace and virtual power plant."
This €4.5 million financing round was led by Inovo Venture Partners, with support from SMOK Ventures, with LT Capital, EIT InnoEnergy, FD Growth Capital and KnowledgeHub as other investors.