Australia’s OpenSolar lands $US20 million to bolster AI technology innovation

Sydney-based solar design and sales software developer OpenSolar has closed a $US20 million equity financing round that it says will help the company invest further in its recently launched AI-powered operating system.

OpenSolar, which boasts the world’s first free end-to-end solar design and sales application serving over 25,000 solar installer businesses in more than 160 countries, announced late last week that it had secured $US20 million (around $A30 million, converted) in new equity financing.

The equity raise included participation from leading technology investors such as Titanium Ventures, Google, 2150 Sustainability Fund, and others.

According to OpenSolar, the new financing will be used to further invest in its AI technology solutions and to further expand its global coverage.

The news comes after OpenSolar launched OpenSolar 3.0 in the middle of September, the company’s latest end-to-end operating system for solar installers. The new software combines AI-powered design, lead generation, and a fully integrated workflow that remains free of charge.

OpenSolar 3.0 provides solar businesses with support for the entire workflow and includes AI-powered customer self-serve estimates, design, interactive proposals, financing and payment tools, and integrated hardware purchasing and project management.

The platform leverages Google’s Solar API data which generates detailed rooftop data based on the company’s extensive geospatial data and computing power to evaluate rooftop solar energy potential.

Google’s Solar API, part of a suite of environment application programming interface (API) options within the Google Maps Platform, is the fully evolved successor to Project Sunroof, which was created by Google engineer Carl Elkin as a “20% time” project – an initiative at Google encouraging employees to spend up to 20 per cent of their paid work time on their own personal projects.

The combination of Google’s Solar API and OpenSolar 3.0 provides solar installers with the software to accurately design rooftop solar systems without relying on costly in-person assessments.

OpenSolar’s software is provided at no cost to the installer, with revenue from partners in manufacturing, finance, and distribution funding the project’s development.

“The ability for any contractor to access world class software and imagery for free, is supporting the rapid transition to low-cost clean energy,” said Andrew Birch, co-founder and CEO of OpenSolar.

“OpenSolar technology has facilitated 6,000,000 solar system designs resulting in $10bn worth of solar sales, since inception.  With the next generation of AI tools, we can take solar growth to the next level, reduce the cost of delivery and help take solar to 50% of energy globally by 2035.”