Groningen, Netherlands-based Soly, an international solar energy company, announced on Monday that it has secured €30M in funding led by ArcTern Ventures in partnership with US-based Fifth Wall.
Existing investors, including Shell Ventures and the pension fund ABP, participated in the round.
The Dutch firm will use the funds to expand its operations into new countries – including Italy, Spain, France, and Scandinavia – and offer a wide range of innovative energy services.
“With Soly, our mission is to make solar energy available to everyone. This investment will propel our ability to help more people and businesses in even more countries to switch to sustainable and affordable energy,” says Patrick van der Meulen, CEO and co-founder of Soly.
“I am immensely proud of our team’s accomplishments and the trust of our clients over the past decade. I am thrilled to have these impact-driven partners,” adds van der Meulen.
Soly: Making solar energy accessible
Soly was founded in 2013 by brothers Patrick and Milan van der Meulen to make solar energy available to everyone.
The founding duo was inspired at a young age by Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” and have since decided to use their entrepreneurship ‘As a force for good.’
Soly operates in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, selling and leasing solar energy systems, batteries, and charging stations.
The company aims to supply 500K+ households & businesses with renewable energy by 2030.
Milan van der Meulen, the co-founder, explains, “The energy transition has long ceased to revolve solely around generating energy. In the coming phase, forecasting as well as managing renewable energy will be crucial. In 2023, we launched our home energy management system: the Soly Brain. Based on our dynamic energy contract – it intelligently controls solar panels, home batteries, and charging stations, among other things, to create an additional revenue model for the end-user. Eventually, we’ll bundle our users into a Virtual Power Plant to actively balance the energy grid and offer new services. In 2024, we’ll install the first energy networks in the Netherlands & Germany.”
The investor
Fifth Wall is the largest venture capital firm focused on the global real estate industry and property technology for the Built World.
The VC invests in technology companies tackling some of the most pressing, real-world problems, be it climate change, aging buildings and infrastructure, inaccessible housing markets, unreliable supply chains, or the future of work, to name a few.
“Soly’s comprehensive, multi-product approach and their great customer and installer platforms, in tandem with its well-proven ability to enter into new geographies with capital and time efficiency, uniquely positions the company to become a utility of the future in Europe,” shares Miguel Nigorra, a Partner and the Head of Europe for Fifth Wall.
“In Europe alone, the solar market represents a more than €3.2 trillion opportunity. We are looking forward to partnering with Patrick, Milan, and their market leading team – as they enter into their next phase of transformational growth,” adds Nigorra.
Founded by former startup founders, ArcTern invests in entrepreneurs obsessed with solving humanity’s greatest challenges—climate change and sustainability.
Mira Inbar, ArcTern Ventures, says, “If we are going to make meaningful progress on climate change, the energy transition will require homes to electrify on a massive scale. Soly is the only truly digital solar sales platform in Europe with compelling unit economics and impressive growth across multiple countries. Soly is uniquely positioned to be a leader of home electrification in Europe, and we are thrilled to accompany them on this journey of growth.”
Read the orginal article: https://siliconcanals.com/news/startups/dutch-soly-bags-30m/
