Led · Seed · Oct 2020

Micronic Technologies develops Tornadic One-Pass™, a Zero Liquid Discharge water purification system that cleans water from virtually any source in one pass without membranes, filters, or chemicals and meets federal and state standards. The technology is touted to reduce wastewater volume by 95% and remove over 99% of contaminants. Micronic targets multiple use cases including oil & gas, mining, agriculture, food and beverage, pharmaceutical industries, and municipal landfills. The company is woman-led and based in a Southwest Virginia Opportunity Zone and aims to commercialize the technology and create high-paying manufacturing jobs in the region. Micronic previously received a Virginia Founders Fund seed financing in 2019 and is pursuing broader commercialization and regional impact. The team and investors emphasize the environmental and economic benefits of on-site treatment and reuse enabled by the technology. Micronic Technologies develops MicroEVAP, a water purification system that removes virtually all contaminants and produces potable water in one pass without membranes, filters, or chemicals. The company says MicroEVAP can reduce wastewater volume by 95 percent, remove most contaminants by 99 percent, and is projected to cost 65 percent less than competing technologies. Micronic will use the investment from CIT’s Virginia Founders Fund to finalize the design and fabrication of its flagship product. The technology has already been tested with potential customers and demonstrated efficient purification of contaminated water sources. Micronic is executing a second development grant with the Tobacco Region Revitalization Commission, and this investment qualifies as a match for that grant. The company plans to place MicroEVAP at the EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory for evaluation and to run customer pilot sites.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2019

Fenris builds API-delivered pre-fill data and technology products designed to optimize and enable a friction-free application and quoting experience for insurers and financial services providers. Its suite includes LicenseSnap, which embeds into online forms and starts the process from a photo of a driver’s license to reduce poor data entry and mid-application abandonment. The company maintains a data repository of over 400 million records and has scored millions of applications, and it offers predictive scores for propensity to buy, lifetime value, churn risk, cross-sell potential, and financial responsibility. Over the last 12 months Fenris expanded sales operations and enhanced its data delivery and analytics platform. Fenris says clients see increased conversion rates, a 25% decrease in cost of acquisition from smarter report ordering, and up to an 80% reduction in manual effort. The company plans to use the additional funding to further build out its product suite to meet demand from current and prospective clients. Fenris Digital builds software and analytics solutions enabling applications for financial and insurance products. The company maintains a proprietary, in-house repository of over 300 million entity records and accompanying data elements from qualified and emerging sources. By applying machine learning to its repository and millions of policy-result records across dozens of personal, commercial, and life insurers, Fenris generates predictive algorithms including MatchScore, TriageScore, LeadScreen and PFR (Personal Financial Responsibility). Led by Founder and CEO Jennifer Linton and based in Richmond, Va., the company plans to expand operations and continue product development. It intends to use the funds to hire sales, strategic business development, customer success, engineering, and data analytics talent and to further build out its product suite. The company disclosed a $1.7M seed financing as its current funding event.

Led · Debt Financing · Jun 2017

Sunnova Energy Corporation is a Houston-based residential solar and battery storage service provider. Founded in 2012 and led by CEO William J. (John) Berger, Sunnova offers residential solar plus battery storage services across the U.S. and its territories. The company serves nearly 60,000 customers across the U.S. and its territories, including Guam, Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Since inception Sunnova has raised over $2.5 billion through a mix of tax equity, debt and corporate equity from institutional investors, private equity firms and major Wall Street banks. In March 2018 the company closed a $100M equity investment from Quantum Strategic Partners Ltd., a private investment vehicle advised by Soros Fund Management. The article does not disclose revenue figures or specific planned uses of the proceeds. Sunnova provides rooftop solar service and related residential offerings, including its newly launched PowerStackTM solar+storage service, through a network of local sales and installation partners. The company emphasizes a free-market approach to deliver lower-cost, worry-free solar power and long-term savings for homeowners. Sunnova is expanding its solar ownership finance product into additional states and broadening its market presence, including increased activity in Texas. Management says recent capital raises support growth and continued product rollouts. Financially, Sunnova announced it has raised aggregate capital of nearly $1 billion in the past three months and has raised more than $2 billion since 2012. Advisers such as CohnReznick Capital have assisted on the tax equity and debt raises. Sunnova supplies residential solar installations and uses its portfolio of assets to secure financing for its operations. The company positioned itself as a power company rather than simply a solar installer and emphasizes focus on long-term profitability in a growing distributed-solar market. Sunnova’s recent financings relied on a securitization-style approach, using assets to back capital. Its assets included residential installations in 14 states, Puerto Rico and Guam, and EnergySage ranked Sunnova the third largest residential installer using 2015 numbers. Financially, Sunnova reported $695 million raised over the past two months and more than $2 billion raised in the past four years via tax equity, debt and corporate equity from private equity firms, institutional investors and major Wall Street banks. Company leadership framed the financings as evidence of strength created through focus and financial discipline. Sunnova Energy Corporation is a Houston, TX–based company that provides rooftop solar service to homeowners through a network of local sales and installation partners. Led by CEO William J. (John) Berger, the company sells and services residential solar installations within and outside the United States. It secured approximately $300m in combined debt and equity financing that the company will use to continue growing its position in the market. The transactions included a conduit facility arranged by Credit Suisse and an equity financing led by Triangle Peak Partners LP. Additional equity investors included business development companies sponsored by Franklin Square Capital Partners LP and sub-advised by GSO Capital Partners LP (Blackstone’s global credit investment platform). As part of the deal, representatives from GSO, Triangle Peak and SEIS Holdings joined Sunnova’s board of directors. Sunnova Energy is a Houston-based residential solar company led by CEO William J. (John) Berger. The company offers solar power services to homeowners via a network of local installation partners who work directly with customers. Sunnova secured an additional $250M in funding, bringing its total funding to approximately $500M. The company said it will use the new capital to grow operations and bring its solutions to more customers across the U.S. The articles describe Sunnova as focused on expanding its residential footprint and scaling its service delivery through partner installers.

Led · Debt Financing · Sep 2015

Sunlight Financial is a technology-enabled finance company that provides point-of-sale consumer loans for residential solar, batteries and roofing through partnerships with installers, distributors and sales organizations nationwide. Its platform includes an intuitive installer portal and robust APIs designed to enable a fast, frictionless point-of-sale process for homeowners and partners. The company positions itself as an originator of high-quality assets and has secured more than $1 billion of capital for loans to homeowners. Sunlight aims to expand its product suite, enhance its technology platform, add strategic partners, and deepen existing partnerships to support growth in solar and adjacent home-improvement financing. Management describes the company as the fastest growing solar financing provider nationwide and emphasizes opportunities driven by the roughly $60 billion solar and energy-efficiency market. Sunlight Financial originates and finances loans for residential solar installations, positioning itself as a lender in the shift from third‑party leases toward solar loans and cash purchases. The company announced an additional $225 million capital raise to support loan originations and expects to finance more than 9,000 homes with that capital, at roughly $25,000 per loan. Using the U.S. average system size of about 5.7 kW-DC, the article estimates an implied all‑in cost of roughly $4.40/W for the loans Sunlight finances. EnergySage data show Sunlight breaking into the top 10 loan providers by market share. The company has grown through several large financings since 2015 to support nationwide expansion and to capture demand as the market shifts away from leases. No revenue or user counts were reported in the article. Sunlight Financial provides loan products and an online platform that enables homeowners to apply for credit and sign loan documents for residential solar systems. The company partners with solar installers, sales organizations and equipment distributors nationwide to simplify and streamline lending for system ownership. Its platform is used by installers and sales teams to offer loans to homeowners across the United States. Sunlight emphasizes capital markets expertise, risk management and consumer credit experience to support installer partners. The company plans to introduce new financing products, expand its Charlotte operations center, and partner with additional solar installers as part of its growth strategy. Financially, Sunlight has secured a $130 million commitment from Route 66 Ventures to support its expansion and product development. Sunlight Financial provides long-term loans to finance the installation of residential rooftop solar systems through market-leading installers and large equipment distributors. The company offers a broad suite of loan products aimed at channel partners and homeowners and emphasizes cost-effective capital and robust service offerings to scale with installers. Its strategy is to grow with several installers to minimize customer acquisition costs and overhead while expanding distribution. Sunlight recently secured $300 million in capital commitments to expand its business platform and increase access to lower-cost financing for residential rooftop solar assets. Management states the capital will be used to deploy loans and enhance product offerings to better serve customers and channel partners. Leadership changes tied to the financing include Neil Z. Auerbach becoming executive chairman while CEO Matthew R. Potere will continue to lead the executive team and hold a board seat.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2015

Cyph builds a messaging solution for consumers and enterprises that includes file transfers, voice and video calling, and post-quantum end-to-end encryption. The product can be integrated via the Cyph API or deployed internally. The company is seeking pilot customers to test internal deployments. Cyph plans to use the new funding to continue developing its core cybersecurity technology and to expand go-to-market efforts and staff. It was co-founded by CEO Ryan Lester and COO Josh Boehm, who participated in MACH37 Cyber Accelerator’s Fall 2014 class. The company is based in McLean, Virginia and recently closed seed financing to support these initiatives.