Counting debt and post IPO funding rounds, over $5B has been invested in solar energy companies in 2016 over 139 rounds, compared to $6.3B in 218 rounds in the previous year.
277 companies were founded in 2014, the peak founding activity for the sector, corresponding with a spike in average ticket sizes that year. Investment activity is muted of late — $6.8M was raised on an average Series B round in 2016, one-fourth the average Series B ticket size in 2014. Series A rounds have dropped by half during that period.
The sector has four billion dollar funded business models — the most funded are hardware developers who manufacture PV silicon and thin film modules such as SunPower and BrightSource Energy. Independent power producers such as ReNew Power Ventures, and TerraForm Power, which generate power to be sold to either a utility or a commercial, industrial or residential customer have seen rising YoY funding activity from $295M in 2012, to $2.2B in 2015.
Solar-as-a-service companies (Sunnova, SolarCity), which offer installation, financing, integrated and customer acquisition services to installers have been on a rising funding streak, from $48M in 2008 to $2.1B in 2015. Solar engineering, procurement and construction companies such as Brite Energy and Direct Energy Solar have seen rising funding activity since 2012.
There have been eight acquisitions in this space in 2016; the last IPO was of San Francisco-based Sunrun in August 2015. NEA (Suniva, SolFocus), DFJ (Solar Junction, SolarCity), IFC (SunBorne Energy, Simpa Networks), KPCB (BeamReach Solar, Gen110), and USA’s DOE (Mosaic, SunPower) are the most active investors in this sector.
Tracxn’s Solar Energy Landscape report covers manufacturers of solar wafers and solar modules, solar based heating, charging and lighting solutions, and other services related to the generation of solar power. Skim through an excerpt of the report below.