SmartHelio banks additional CHF 150’000

In the next ten years, the solar photovoltaic industry is expected to become a USD 1 trillion market, which will be dominated by emerging markets. Despite this potential for growth, solar-plant maintenance is highly manual and reactive, which results in loss of time and money. Currently, monitoring solutions only provide data acquisition and visualization; diagnosis and root-cause analysis are highly manual. This has created a need for more advanced tools and solutions for the solar industry.

Founded in 2019 by Govinda Upadhyay (CEO), SmartHelio has developed AI-based advanced data analytics for solar panel diagnostics and a prescription for the proactive maintenance of solar assets. The technology of the Lausanne-based startup aims to improve solar plant performance and optimize the ROI for solar companies and their clients.

To become the one-stop solution for solar asset management, the startup has also developed its own panel-level Smart IoT sensor, called HelioHealth, which is powered by edge computing and further improves the diagnostics. The startup plans on making the sensor intelligent and improving data analytics, which will help reduce sensor cost by 80% and achieve a 50% faster fault-location.

SmartHelio currently has 30 pilot customers located in Switzerland, France, India, and the Netherlands. Moreover, the company has witnessed a near 200% surge in demand for its deep-data-driven solar asset management solution during COVID-19. To take care of this growing demand in Europe and India, SmartHelio plans to use the Venture Kick funding further to develop its IoT sensor and AI-based cloud platform and expand the team.

 “Venture Kick has been very supportive, even before our inception. They provided us with the right contacts, funding, and support we needed to launch our product. Their support has been very instrumental during the COVID time, where we had to change our strategy, and we really needed advice and funds. We are looking forward to working closely with the Venture Kick team, especially at this scale-up stage,” said Govinda Upadhyay, SmartHelio CEO.

(Press release/RAN)