Neighborhood Sun

A tech-enabled community solar platform dramatically expanding solar access

Last Funded December 2023

$1,908,864

raised from 1,983 investors

Highlights

1
🏆 Proven track record of success- kilowatts under management grew 550% in 2021.
2
💰 Raised $5.5MM to date, including $1.6MM from 1,700+ Wefunder investors.
3
🖥 Our SunEngine advanced software platform is best in breed fueling 7x growth in recurring revenue.
4
📈 60% Revenue growth YoY and $2.5MM revenue last two years.

Featured Investor

Our Team

Our CEO, Gary Skulnik, has been passionate about fighting climate change for most of his adult life. Joining forces with CTO John Wilson, and CRO Thom Smith, we've got a team that wants to disrupt the utility model through technology while bringing in hundreds of thousands of people into the clean energy future.

Why Neighborhood Sun?

We are a tech-enabled community solar company that virtually connects retail customers with nearby solar projects, breaking the barriers to widespread solar adoption. 80% of consumers in the $600B utility industry can’t get rooftop solar. We provide the platform that allows solar asset owners to reach these consumers at scale.

The $600B Electric Utility Market has a Serious Solar Problem

Neighborhood Sun has the Solution

There are 150 million residents and businesses that can’t access rooftop solar, and we’re ready to break through the barriers and capture a big piece of the market. Thanks to more than $5.5M of investment, including over $1M in our last Wefunder round, we’ve built the market’s leading advanced software platform, Sun Engine, and recruited a highly experienced management team. This translated into substantial growth in 2021. 

  • We dramatically increased the total value of our booked contracts from around $1 MM to over $28 MM in just one year. 
  • Our recurring revenue from customer management jumped 343%.Our customer count has gone up 3x to over 12,000 customers now.
  • We built a strong pipeline of future projects worth over $75 MM.

How do we Generate Revenue? 

Solar project owners often struggle to access solar consumers, and vice versa. We are the key piece connecting solar project owners to mass market consumers.

There are three steps for Neighborhood Sun to get to revenue for a project or portfolio:

STEP ONE - Demonstrate the value of Sun Engine and the team behind it.

STEP TWO - Sign a contract with the solar project or portfolio owner.

STEP THREE - Begin customer acquisition and get paid for each customer we acquire.

1. Direct sales. We have an experienced team leading the training and ongoing management of sales personnel through our sales academies and accountability metrics.

2. Strategic sales. Our channel partners work with us in ways no other community solar company can match.

3. Referrals. Because we put so much emphasis on customer development and because we are the most credible green brand in the community solar space, we're able to work with our customers to generate referrals to their friends and neighbors.

Once the project is filled up, we switch from acquisition to management.

  • Ongoing customer billing 
  • Utility data coordination and reporting. 
  • AR and project reporting for asset owners. 
  • Customer service

We’re Growing our Revenue every Year

Thanks to Sun Engine and our success in building out the Neighborhood Sun team while growing our contracted revenue to 60% in 2021, we’re poised for even more rapid growth, with a projected revenue increase of 2x or more this year!

We currently have 11 solar partners with 76 projects under our management, and we will continue adding more each year.

Recurring Revenue

The extra thing that makes Neighborhood Sun even more valuable than you may already think? It’s our Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR). Our Sun Engine advanced software platform is the white label or fully wrapped solution that the businesses that own solar assets are looking for. Whether they want a full licensing agreement wrapped with customer management or just a white label solution they can use internally, Sun Engine is the best platform for the industry. Eleven companies with 76 projects have already signed with us. We sign long-term contracts with solar asset owners, which translates into many years of ARR.

What Sets Us Apart

Neighborhood Sun is without competition in the way that we acquire and manage customers for community solar. We fill the roles that otherwise require two or more companies to manage separately. We are recognized with a 5-star rating on Google Reviews because of the seamless transitions that are made through a customer’s development from prospect to subscriber to brand ambassador.

Our experienced and well-connected Board is also a differentiating factor. We have successful solar entrepreneurs, impact VC investors, energy industry vets, and our chair, Bill Bumpers is a long-time leader in the legal energy world.

We are not just accountable to our shareholders, but to all our stakeholders, such as our employees, customers, the community around us, and our planet.

In addition, we're a certified B Corporation and want to use our business as a true force for good--it's baked into our corporate DNA. As such, we continuously meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.

An essential aspect of the Neighborhood Sun business model is our commitment to our corporate values:

🔆 Transparency

🔆 Customer-focused

🔆 Integrity

🔆 Sustainability

🔆 Innovation


Your investment will allow us to expand on the success we achieved[1] in 2021 and increase our positive impact on society. We'll be one step closer to disrupting the outdated electric utility industry.

We will use the funds we raise to:

1. Further innovate our proprietary software platform for customer management

We’ll stay ahead of the competition through further investments in our Sun Engine(tm) platform, allowing us to continuously innovate while maintaining the high level of functionality it currently has.

2. Expand to new markets

Community solar is rapidly expanding across the U.S. and we are looking to enter several new markets, such as Illinois, Virginia, New Mexico, and Oregon, among others.

3. Make key executive hires

We would like to bring in a CFO and a COO to ensure we are operating at peak efficiency as we scale.

The Bottom Line

The utility industry has a solar problem and Neighborhood Sun is the solution. As a tech-enabled community solar company that virtually connects retail customers with nearby solar projects, we can break the barriers to massive solar adoption. 80% of consumers in the $600B utility industry can’t get rooftop solar. We provide the platform that allows solar asset owners to reach these consumers at scale.

Overview