Lightrock

I’m pleased to share that Lightrock has participated in the Series B funding round of SolarSquare Energy, a leading provider of residential solar solutions in India. Founded in 2015 by Neeraj Jain, Shreya Mishra, and Nikhil Nahar, SolarSquare has built an impressive business by streamlining residential solar installation. Their full-stack approach cuts out intermediaries while ensuring great quality and service, making home solar both more affordable and hassle-free for customers. The company’s execution speaks for itself: They’ve completed over 20,000 installations with excellent customer satisfaction ratings, and their efficient operational model and team of 700+ professionals have proven highly scalable, demonstrating strong unit economics and a clear pathway to further growth. This funding will support SolarSquare’s expansion to 50+ cities across India, while also strengthening their technology platform, team capabilities, and market presence. Congratulations to both the Lightrock and the SolarSquare teams. We look forward to being part of this journey. See a link to SolarSquare’s website and TechCrunch’s coverage in the comments.

📰 The final Lightrock Latest newsletter of 2024 is out now! 👇 Read about our follow-on investment in Satispay, the Slush Climate Summit, and our role in the Impact Convergence Forum for Private Equity (ICF), and more down below.

🗣️ Tomorrow, as part of Lightrock’s efforts to engage with the ecosystem, our Head of Impact Dr. Marc Moser will be sharing his insights into managing impact in private equity in The Upright Project’s webinar. 🔢 The Upright Project is an impact data company that is building a new model to quantify the net impact of companies. By measuring net impact in four dimensions – environment, health, society, and knowledge – its data provides more holistic comparisons for consumers, investors, employees, business leaders, and politicians to better understand what specific business decisions are promoting. This empowers individuals to support and/or build businesses that align with their values. 📊 The webinar marks the launch of their impact database of over 1,000 private equity and venture capital funds, and 20,000+ portfolio companies around the world, thanks to Upright’s 7+ years of impact quantification expertise. As well as covering the data methodology and use cases, there will be a discussion on the overall role of impact and its links to financial value creation within private equity. 🔗 You can hear Marc’s views on Upright’s milestone on the webinar by registering at the link in the comments.

🇿🇦 Lightrock will be attending SuperReturn Africa from Tuesday 3rd to Thursday 5th December in Cape Town, South Africa!   🌍 The event is Africa’s largest private capital conference, attended by over 350 GPs and 200 LPs, representing $1.5 trillion in AUM. The agenda also offers specialist insights from 175+ thought-leaders.    📨 If you’d like to meet Shakir Merali, Ravi Sharma, or Alex N. at SuperReturn, or learn more about Lightrock from Arul Thomas or Gozie C. whilst in Cape Town, please do reach out via LinkedIn DMs.   🎟️ For more information and tickets, check out the link in the comments.

🗞️ Our portfolio company Liqid has been spotlighted in LGT Private Banking’s Insights magazine!   🖥️ Lightrock partnered with Liqid, which provides sustainable and scalable data centre solutions that decreases demand for power and cooling measures, back in 2021. It does this by enabling data centre infrastructure to flexibly adapt its outputs, whilst traditional models are designed to max out every server to function at peak workload levels (even when not required).   ⚡ In this article, Tobias Aellig, CFA, explores the global demands for data centres, the bottlenecks in the market, and how the world needs to balance the trend of electrification with the demands for decarbonisation.   🔗 To learn more about the data centre market and Liqid, click on the link in the comments. 

📅 …and the countdown to Slush 2025 starts again!   🇫🇮 A massive thank you to everyone who came along to our Slush Climate Summit, in partnership with Transition and Extantia, last week in Helsinki.   🎤 With around 1 in 12 Slush conference attendees applying to hear the latest climate tech insights at our Slush Official Side Event, we knew that we had to deliver. We’re therefore extremely grateful to panellists Saif Hameed (Altruistiq), Ari Helgason (Transition), Torben Schreiter (Extantia), Kimberly Tan (GenZero), Dominic Vergine (Monumo ), and Christopher Steinau (Lightrock), keynote presenter Sebastian Heitmann (Extantia), and fireside chat participants Martin Roscheisen (Diamond Foundry), David Helgason (Transition), Annu Nieminen (The Upright Project), and Mimi Billing (Sifted) for such engaging content.   👏 A special mention also to those behind the scenes who made the day possible – particularly Elin Dölker, Ella Norja, and Konrad Kordowski of Slush and our Slush volunteers, Kaisu Hyvärinen and the Sun Effects Oy team, and the co-host production teams (Alasdair Lennon, Emily Buckley, Sarah Knox, Gabbi Papadopoulos, Rachel Stevens, and Fernanda Bartels).

📣 The Slush Climate Summit 2024 agenda is now out! In partnership with Transition and Extantia, Lightrock will deliver the latest climate tech insights next Thursday. 1️⃣  Green Growth Playbook Panel: Paths for Climate Innovators Panellists Saif Hameed of Altruistiq, Ari Helgason of Transition, Torben Schreiter of Extantia, Kimberly Tan of GenZero, Dominic Vergine of Monumo , and moderator Christopher Steinau of Lightrock will answer founders’ burning questions on climate innovation. 2️⃣  The Elephant In The Room: Is This The End Of The Beginning For Climate Tech? Hear Sebastian Heitmann of Extantia and Super Climate cover offtakes alongside green premiums and green discounts. 3️⃣  A Fireside Chat On Diamond Technology Martin Roscheisen of Diamond Foundry will be interviewed by David Helgason of Transition and Unity Technologies Corporation to discuss how diamonds are supporting innovative and green tech manufacturing processes. 4️⃣  What You Need To Know About Impact Measurement & Management Annu Nieminen of The Upright Project will be interviewed by Mimi Billing of Sifted to explore what climate founders need to know about IMM. 🇫🇮 As well as Christopher, Lightrock’s Rachael Zhu, CA, Richard C. Grabbe, Rory Glover, Sahib Bhasin, Alasdair Lennon, Emily Buckley, and Sarah Knox will be in Helsinki for the Summit. Please feel free to reach out via LinkedIn DM if you’ll be there too!

🌎 Despite its potential, Latin America represents only 1% of global impact investment assets under management. Why is this, and what opportunities are we missing?   🗣️ Lightrock's Head of Impact LatAm Tatiana Freire Sasson joined eB Capital's Guilherme Quintal, CFA, SP Ventures's Juliana De Podestá, Aliança pelo Impacto's Ricardo Ramos and BTG Pactual’s Marina Albuquerque for a roundtable discussion on key themes from The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN)'s World Forum in October.   💼 The panel explored critical topics including marketing Brazilian impact investment opportunities internationally, breaking down Global North vs. Global South investment perspectives, and untapped opportunities for both impact and financial returns in emerging markets.   🔗 Read Stephanie Tondo's full coverage in Startups - link in comments.   ~   🌎 Apesar do seu enorme potencial, a América Latina representa apenas 1% dos ativos sob gestão de investimentos de impacto no mundo. Quais são os principais motivos para isso e quais oportunidades estamos deixando passar?   🗣️ A Head de Impacto da Lightrock LatAm, Tatiana Freire Sasson, junto com Guilherme Quintal, CFA da eB Capital, Juliana De Podestá da SP Ventures, Ricardo Ramos da Aliança pelo Impacto e Marina Albuquerque do BTG Pactual para uma round table para discutir os principais temas do Fórum Global do GIIN (The Global Impact Investing Network) realizado em outubro.   💼 Durante o encontro, foram discutidos tópicos críticos como a promoção internacional das oportunidades de investimentos em impacto brasileiros, a quebra de barreiras entre as perspectivas de investimento do Hemisfério Norte e do Hemisfério Sul, além das oportunidades ainda não exploradas para retornos financeiros e de impacto nos mercados emergentes.   🔗 Acompanhe a cobertura completa da Stephanie Tondo no Startups - link disponível nos comentários.

🗞️ In case you missed it, check out our latest edition of Lightrock Latest down below to see what we've been up to since the summer! 🔗 To receive future updates straight in your inbox, subscribe to our newsletter via the link in the comments.

📣 Moniepoint Group has today announced their $110 million funding round to scale its digital payments and banking solutions, which Lightrock participated in.   🤝 Lightrock first partnered with Moniepoint in 2021. The financial inclusion provider has also won the backing of Development Partners International (DPI), Google, and Verod Capital, among others.   🗣️ Commenting on the successful funding round, Lightrock Partner Ravi Sharma commented: "Tosin and the dedicated team at Moniepoint have achieved something remarkable. They have built one of the most promising fintechs in Africa by creating economic opportunities for others, most notably SME businesses - critical drivers of economic and social progress."   🔗 To learn more about Moniepoint or the funding round, check out their website and the Financial Times coverage through the links in the comments.