The Sunible team.
Sunible is an online platform for solar that makes it easy for homeowners to see installations in their area, compare firms, get quotes and go solar. Installers benefit from high-quality leads, lower customer acquisition costs and market intelligence. Sunible has been acquired by solar pioneer Tom Dinwoodie’s new venture, Domino, a one-stop site that makes it easy for consumers to achieve clean, low-carbon living–and save money in the process. Dinwoodie is a leading expert in solar power with over 25 years of experience in renewable energy. He built his Berkeley-based PowerLight Corporation from a one-man shop into a profitable multi-million-dollar company that merged with solar giant SunPower where he served as both CTO of the acquired subsidiary and CEO. Dinwoodie serves on several boards and has a number of solar patents to his name.
Dinwoodie and Domino are now joining forces with Sunible to bring solar and other clean energy solutions to millions more people around the world while drastically reducing global carbon emissions.
“We’re excited for Sunible to join the growing Domino community,” said Dinwoodie, Domino founder and CEO. “The Sunible team’s solar knowledge and deep understanding of data, user behavior, and product development will help realize the vision of Domino. Together, we’ll show consumers how low-carbon living can be lower-cost, healthier, lifestyle-enhancing, and lead to a world of abundance for ourselves and our children.”
Sunible’s mission was to put solar on 5 million more roofs by 2018. In order to do that, the company tackled customer acquisition from both the consumer and enterprise sides. For consumers, Sunible built an online service that lets homeowners discover their solar options and make decisions faster. On the enterprise side, Sunible created an on-demand prospecting and market intelligence service.
Domino is expanding on the Sunible platform to not only take solar mainstream but also provide individuals everything else they need to go 100% carbon-free.
Stephen Torres, founder and CEO of Sunible, will serve as COO at Domino. “At Sunible, we love data. We’ve been putting together a proprietary set of data to build a platform like no other that connects homeowners and solar installers quickly and easily. For installers, that means much lower customer acquisition costs. For homeowners, we’ve greatly simplified the process of going solar, removing the hassle and stress. Now we’re taking that to the next level with Domino, by adding a host of other actions anyone can take to reduce their carbon footprint,” said Torres.
“One of the first things we learned at Sunible was that residential solar’s biggest problem was not the cost, but the decision-making experience. The cost of solar has dropped 90% over the past 25 years, but the average decision still takes 9 months. If we took the friction out of the decision, people would make more decisions!” said Dhanur Grandhi, co-founder of Sunible and now Head of Product at Domino. “Our consumer site enabled our first homeowner to go solar in 8 days, and our enterprise service helped installers find or qualify solar prospects in 6 seconds or less. By making it easier for buyers to buy and sellers to sell, the industry wins. Domino represents a natural extension of what we’ve been doing at Sunible.”
Sunible was one of the original solar startups in the SfunCube, the world’s only incubator and accelerator for solar startups. One of Sunible’s key features was developed at a SfunCube hackathon, for which it won Best Technical Accomplishment. Now, Sunible is the first startup from the incubator to make a successful exit with an acquisition.
“It’s gratifying to see one of the first SfunCube startups get acquired,” said Danny Kennedy, President and co-founder of SfunCube, and co-founder of solar provider Sungevity. “Stephen and Dhanur have been part of the SfunCube community from the beginning, and we’ve seen them grow their company from an idea into something that could be a major force in the solar industry.”
“SfunCube is thrilled for Sunible, and we can’t wait to see what they do with Domino,” added Emily Kirsch, co-founder and CEO of SfunCube. “This is what SfunCube is all about – nurturing solar startups so that they can grow and succeed, and make a difference in our industry.”
The terms of the Sunible acquisition were not disclosed.