GRYD Energy raises £1 million to scale its zero-cost solar tech to homes nationwide

0
GRYD Energy & Black Seed VC teams (L-R Mohamed Gaafar, Scott Whiteside, Tom Jordan, Yvonne Nagawa, Leonie Thomas, Mathieu Van Assche, Karl Lokko)

GRYD Energy, a solar tech startup and developer of the UK’s first true solar subscription, today announces it has raised £1 million to fund its national expansion.

Investors in the pre-seed round include Black Seed VC, an early-stage venture firm dedicated to Black business founders in the UK, and SFC Capital, a leading investor in disruptive UK companies.

The new funds will enable the business to accelerate deployment of its zero-cost solar and battery systems through partnerships with housing developers, registered providers and local authorities nationwide.

GRYD has developed a UK-first subscription model that allows developers and homeowners to install solar without ever paying for the hardware. The high upfront cost of solar hardware is a fundamental barrier that has prevented millions of households from adopting the technology. It is estimated that 8.5million UK homeowners have roofs well suited to solar but can’t afford the upfront expense.

GRYD funds and maintains a home’s solar hardware for the 25-year life of the system, saving developers up to £10k in hardware costs per home and enabling homeowners to reap the bill-saving benefits of solar from day one.

A GRYD subscription averages about £65 per month for a four-bed home. The monthly price is fixed and includes maintenance and insurance for the 25-year life of the system.

The strength of the pre-seed round reflects the surge of investment interest in solar and serves as a strong endorsement of GRYD’s capacity to be the first mover at scale in the UK’s residential solar-as-a-service space.

The business is currently focussed on new homes and will consider expansion to the retrofit market as it continues to scale.

Other investors in the round include Oasthouse Ventures, whose Director Simon Turner has financed and scaled numerous renewable infrastructure businesses globally and has joined GRYD’s board as Investor Director. Richard Thwaites, the founder and CEO of energy storage developer Penso Power (which was recently acquired by BW ESS) has also invested.

GRYD plans to use the new funds to invest in a series of key hires, secure further energy import and export partnerships, and expand GRYD’s service to include flexibility services – increasing customer savings by charging and discharging stored energy based on dynamic price signals to support capacity in the grid.

The business has launched a successful three-home pilot project in Cornwall, which is serving as a testbed for its software, and has signed an energy export deal with renewable energy supplier Good Energy, securing an important revenue stream for the business.

With several projects already commercially committed, GRYD is set to deploy to hundreds of homes nationwide in 2025; positioning themselves to scale their service to 30,000 new-build homes over the next three years.

Mohamed Gaafar, CEO and co-founder of GRYD, said, “The strength of our pre-seed round is a welcome start to the next phase of GRYD Energy’s journey as we prepare to scale our solar technology and service nationwide.

“We’re fortunate to have the backing of fantastic investors like Black Seed and SFC who share our sense of urgency to accelerate the UK’s clean energy transition and ensure no one is left behind. With around 250,000 new homes being built in the UK each year, the untapped solar potential of our residential rooftops is immense and only continues to grow – as does the pressing need to ensure that Britain’s new housing stock is futureproofed and primed for a clean, energy efficient future.”

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here