Raptor Maps secured $35 million in Series C funding, the solar drone inspection provider announced.
The Boston-based company raised the money in a Series C round led by Maverix Private Equity, along with existing investors MKB, Blue Bear Capital, Congruent Ventures, Buoyant Ventures, and Y Combinator.
Raptor Maps’ software helps solar energy scale and digitizes leading solar portfolios in the North American and global markets. The company digitally models solar panel arrays, aggregating data and images of the systems. Analyzing that information allows operators to sense aberrations in circuitry or problems like vegetation obscuring the panels.
The financing will help Raptor Maps accelerate product development, including enhancements in solar automation, work management, and machine-learning insights. The company says it also plans to expand its team and make further investments in software engineering and data science.
The company’s solar management platform, Raptor Solar, provides a system of record and workflows for asset owners to build, manage, and operate their solar sites. Raptor reports that its platform is designed to improve asset resilience and energy yield, reduce risk and costs, and ultimately increase the rate of return of solar assets.
“Our mission is to revolutionize solar asset management through cutting-edge technology,” said Nikhil Vadhavkar, co-founder and CEO of Raptor Maps. Raptor’s product “provides a fundamentally new approach for solar asset owners to manage OpEx and realize returns that were underwritten in the first place but have slipped out of reach for far too many portfolios.”
“With the support of this elite investment group, we are capitalized to more fully achieve our work of making solar energy the smartest and most competitive electricity source in the economy,” he said.
Raptor Maps publishes an annual report on global PV system underperformance. According to its 2023 report, system-level anomalies are the largest drivers of power losses, with string, inverter, and combiner anomalies affecting the most power as a percentage of total power inspected, at 1.06%, 0.70%, and 0.67%, respectively.
Raptor Maps secured a $22 million Series B investment in 2022 from Canadian private investment firm MacKinnon, Bennett & Co., a specialist in energy, transportation, and climate tech. The company was founded in 2015 in MIT’s Man-Vehicle Laboratory by PhD students, Nikhil Vadhavkar and Eddie Obropta, and it won the $100,000 grand prize in MIT’s Entrepreneurship competition.
