Glint Solar, a company revolutionizing the solar development landscape, has successfully raised $8 million in Series A funding. This financial boost aims to expand its innovative platform across Europe, promising to accelerate the adoption of solar energy. The funding round is led by Smedvig Ventures, with contributions from Antler Nordic and Antler Elevate, Futurum Ventures, and Momentum. The company’s software, which aids solar developers in significantly increasing their project pipeline and evaluating potential sites more efficiently, is set to transform the solar energy sector.
The company's platform has already made remarkable strides in the solar industry. Since its last funding round in June 2022, Glint Solar's customer base has expanded nearly tenfold. The software helps developers triple their project pipeline on average and assess potential sites ten times faster than conventional methods. It features adaptable layout designs, yield estimates, and incorporates country-specific GIS data and topographic analysis, making it a versatile tool for solar developers.
Glint Solar's main regions for customers currently include France, Germany, the Nordics, and the U.K. With the new funding, the company plans to extend its sales teams to target additional European markets such as Italy and Spain. This strategic expansion aims to bolster the planning of land-based solar installations, with a focus on utility-scale projects rather than roof-mounted solar installations.
The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can evaluate potential sites, organize projects, and design solar parks. It also serves as a project presentation aid, providing 3D-rendered project layouts in seconds. Glint Solar's software can factor in essential considerations like grid capacity, protected areas, and sound when assessing potential sites. Additionally, it assists customers in sharing information with landowners and obtaining necessary permits.
Harald Olderheim, CEO of Glint Solar, emphasizes the importance of infrastructure investment and regulatory reform in accelerating solar rollouts. He notes that the cost of solar installations has decreased significantly over the past decade, dropping by approximately 90%. These reductions have paved the way for more cost-effective and widespread adoption of solar technology.
"It takes time to get all the agreements — with the land owner, with the grid, and with the municipality — to [deliver a solar project] and all these processes take time; so that’s one of the reasons we are doing Glint Solar." – Harald Olderheim
Olderheim highlighted the efficiency of large-scale solar plants in boosting energy production swiftly. He pointed out that a single large plant could house between 7,000 to 15,000 solar panels, offering an efficient means of expanding energy production.
"If you think the impact we are making by one solar plant, a big one — like 10 megawatt, maybe with 7,000 or 15,000 solar panels — it’s a very efficient way of growing the energy production fast." – Harald Olderheim
The platform's user-friendly interface allows entire teams to collaborate seamlessly on projects. This functionality ensures that critical stakeholders such as landowners, grid operators, and municipalities can make informed decisions quickly, minimizing risks.
"We are making it very user friendly so everyone in a team can use one software together and work on this problem to make [project delivery] much faster. And you can share everything — with the land owner, with the grid, with the municipality — so they can easily take decisions much faster with the lower risk." – Harald Olderheim
Jonathan Lerner praised Glint Solar's role in bridging the gap between solar energy harvesting and project implementation. He emphasized that Glint Solar provides one of the first unified products for utility projects on the market, streamlining processes that previously required manual data analysis from multiple sources.
"The solar industry has done a great job at developing ways to harvest green energy, but now we need better processes to get these plans in motion. This is the gap that Glint Solar is filling. As one of the first unified products for utility projects on the market, solar developers, engineers, analysts and management can find everything they need to locate the best land spaces quickly and accurately. This is a much-needed evolution from manually trawling through data from multiple sources, saving considerable resources in all-important green energy projects." – Jonathan Lerner
The company's focus on utility-scale projects aligns with its strategy to target the largest market segment in the solar industry. Olderheim noted that utility-scale projects account for about 60% of the market, making them a prime area for impact.
"If you look at the market, about 60% of the market is utility, large scale. And then about 20% is big rooftops, and 20% is residential. So we are going for the biggest market," he told TechCrunch. "If you want to make a big impact in the world … we can do it through the utility scale, because that’s much faster if you’re going to build increase the [solar] energy in the world." – Harald Olderheim
