CAD and sales enablement company Aurora Solar raised $50 million in its most recent solar venture capital financing round, more than twice the average for the solar software space.
Iconiq Capital led the Series B round and along with Energize VC and Pear Ventures (who did Aurora’s Series A), together with real-estate-focused venture capital company Fifth Wall.
A number of the solar industry’s biggest names, such as SunPower and Vivint Solar, use Aurora’s software to style rooftop solar systems. Remote imaging, which has been a standard for most solar jobs, become even more integral during the coronavirus pandemic when stay-at-home dictates slowed inspections and permitting. Recently, residential solar firms have shifted more of their work online.
“The pandemic has accelerated trends toward remote processes,”
Aurora co-founder, Sam Adeyemo
Partners made 1 million jobs with Aurora’s remote-modeling applications in the six months crossing April to October, a rate that outpaces past system designs. That brings the total number of programs designed using the program to 4 million of a month.
“Accurate system site design with strong pruning evaluation…is so important when you can’t see people’s houses for site surveys,” said Wood Mackenzie solar analyst Molly Cox. “More streamlined design procedures generally just help with the overall efforts to reduce soft costs for both residential and commercial and industrial [solar].”
In Q2 2020, soft costs, including labor and design, accounted for the vast majority of typical per-watt installation prices for residential solar.
This round brings Aurora’s total capital raised to more than $70 million, outpacing the money raised by other solar design computer software businesses, many of which are situated at California’s Bay Area. SF’s Folsom Labs, the designer of HelioScope, has announced about $1 million in financing. Sight, located in precisely the same city, has raised $5 million, based on Crunchbase.
Aurora will invest the money on enhancing remote sales and website audits, expanding services tied to its applications and adding “hundreds of people throughout the organization, with focus on technology, product and customer success,” said Adeyemo. Last year the company began working with Google, integrating the tech giant’s data into its software and increasing the accuracy of layouts.
