On Wednesday, SolarCity added $158 million to the pool of funds that it uses to finance, design, develop and install commercial or residential solar power projects in the U.S. The latest fund came through a partnership with U.S. Bancorp (a subsidiary of U.S. Bank) and gives SolarCity more than $1 billion in financing capacity… → Read More
SolarCity today announced that it is taking a $21.5 million round of funding led by Mayfield Fund, and the company’s previous investors Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DBL Investors and Generation Capital. The company’s prior funding totaled approximately $134 million, and included investors First Solar, JP Morgan and Elon Musk.
SolarCity helps businesses, home owners and government agencies adopt solar power. It designs, installs and provides finance options for appropriate solar systems with a goal of helping its customers generate savings from clean power versus electricity generated from non-renewables. → Read More
One thing home solar startup SunRun doesn’t seem to have a problem with is getting access to lots of capital. The three year old company has now raised $85 million in venture capital – including a new $55 million round led by Sequoia Capital. Previous investors Accel Partners and Foundation Capital also participated in the round.
But that’s not all. The company also has $90 million from US Bancorp and $100 million from PG&E to finance home solar installations.
At its core SunRun is a finance company. They offer attractive solutions to home owners to add solar panels to their roof, or in their yard. Customers can choose to pay up a single up front fee for the systems – which average around $25,000 – or pay nothing up front and make monthly payments over the decades-long useful life of the system. Either way customers are likely to save money versus their normal grid electricity largely thanks to federal tax credits and state and local incentives to go solar. → Read More
My last post triggered some interesting debates in the blogosphere about whether entrepreneurs were a product of nature or could be nurtured. It’s not black or white. People are a product of their upbringing and education. Average humans can achieve extraordinary feats when they really try. I’ll concede that, like some great athletes, some great entrepreneurs may have something different about them that gives them a special advantage (this is a topic that I am presently researching). But not every entrepreneur needs to reap the same fortune as Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg to qualify as a success. You can build a good lifestyle business that pays the bills, or that does good for the world, and be considered a successful entrepreneur. (And you’ll probably be happier and gain more respect than most billionaires do.) Entrepreneurship isn’t all about the IPO. → Read More
