Godrej Invests $1.2 Mn in Residential Rooftop Solar Startup ZunRoof

Gurugram based Zunroof is founded by Pranesh Chaudhary. The company specializes in solar rooftop design, installation, and management using technologies such as computer vision, AI and VR. The startup will use the funds to hire and retain talent and expand its solar rooftop operations across India. It is also looking to launch home IOT products and to further strengthening its product portfolio.

Read: Pranesh Chaudhary of Zunroof: Cost Savings Key behind Solar adoption in India

So far, ZunRoof has raised a total of $1.7 Mn in four rounds of funding since its launch in April 2016. Before the fresh round, the startup had raised a seed funding of INR 1.66 Cr in June last year.

Along with Godrej, existing investors Ramakant Sharma, founder of Livspace; Gaurav Gupta, Asia director of Dalberg Advisors; and Ajith Pai of Paipal Ventures also participated in this funding round.

Pranesh Chaudhary, Founder & CEO, ZunRoof, said, “Sushant and I have been blessed to find the right angel investors to fund us since we started. Our pre-Series A and backing from Pirojsha Godrej comes at the perfect time – allows us to hire and retain great talent, scale solar rooftop operations across India and launch our home-IOT products. We are already market leaders for residential solar rooftops in 40+ cities (including Delhi, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Bangalore) and aim to build on this lead to bring smart and clean energy choices to every home in India.”

ZunRoof helps customers reduce their electricity bills by using unutilized rooftops for solar power generation. It also offers a real-time IoT device for solar power monitoring through a companion app. The app lets customers control or modify solar power usage.

Read: Solar Rooftop Price Shopping, Which is the Best Solution For You?

Godrej’s rooftop solution subsidiary Godrej Solar is one of the companies that ZunRoof competes with, so the investment can be seen as a strategic one.

Pirojsha Godrej, Executive Chairman, Godrej Properties, said, “We are delighted to support ZunRoof’s exciting plans in the home IOT and solar rooftop spaces. The Founders’ exciting vision combined with the passion, knowledge and the leadership they’ve demonstrated in the space makes us very excited to be a part of their journey.”

Overall, ZunRoof has designed solar rooftops for over 10,000 residential houses and has operations in 40+ cities like Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Jaipur and Chennai.

Solar energy is one of the cornerstones of the Indian government’s push to build up its renewable energy capacity. In March this year, the government earmarked a fund of Rs 11,814 Cr to propel Phase-II of the grid-connected rooftop solar programme. The government is targetting 40 GW of rooftop solar energy by the year 2022.

As per data on the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy website, a total of 1.2 GW capacity grid connected rooftop solar PV systems have been reported installed in the country as on January 31, 2019.

However, the solar rooftop industry in India is currently going through some challenges before it can start to flourish. But despite challenges, the company is optimistic about its revenue roadmap. ZunRoof is aiming to go past Rs 1000 Cr in ARR over the next 3 years.