OpenSolar has announced it has raised $15 million to expand its free product offering to solar contractors who use the platform in more than 130 countries.
Telstra Ventures, one of Australia's largest venture capital funds, led the funding round, which included participation from sustainability fund 2150 and existing investors such as Jeff Tannenbaum's Titan Grove and solar entrepreneurs Alec Guettel and Howard Wenger.
Along with potential to extend the platform's functionality, OpenSolar will grow the number of partnerships it has globally and charge fees for linking solar contractors with the suppliers of goods and services they require to operate and build their companies. Between now and 2030, the switch to solar electricity is predicted to generate over $3 trillion in value, and OpenSolar is ideally positioned to take advantage of this chance.
OpenSolar Co-founder and CEO Andrew Birch (Birchy) said, “We started OpenSolar in Australia which is the most advanced solar market in the world, where you pay an extremely low price per watt and get your system installed within one to three weeks. With a leading position now in the Australian market, we’ve introduced much of that speed and efficiency to the rest of the world through our software.”
This latest financing round brings OpenSolar’s total funding to date to $25 million.