POWER Magazine: Planted Raises $31.8 Million to Accelerate Autonomous Solar Deployment

A company that specializes in autonomous power deployment said it has raised $31.8 million to scale its operations, with investments from major groups including Google and Bill Gates-founded Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV). California-based Planted said the new capital expands its robotic fleet. The company said the funding also supports the launch of Sage, its next-generation robot, as demand outpaces the company’s current capacity.

Planted on September 15 said the funding round was led by Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health, with participation from Gigascale Capital and Open AI-backer Khosla Ventures, along with Google and BEV. Gigascale Capital was founded by former Meta executive Mike Schroepfer.

“Globally, solar needs to be deployed about five times faster than it is today to hit the scale experts project we’ll need by 2050, and the gap is growing as the industry confronts constraints involving supply chains, land, interconnection, and skilled labor,” said Eric Brown, CEO of Planted. “The way to close that gap is to turn the construction of a power plant into a manufacturing problem: building robots and deployment systems, not just projects. We have robots in the field proving the model works today. This round is how we scale it.”

Brown’s group on Tuesday said a record 664 GW of solar photovoltaic power was installed worldwide last year, but noted terawatts of new generation capacity are needed to meet projected demand. The company said it combines planning software, high-density terrain-following solar arrays, storage, and field robotics into one system, which enables Planted to build on parcels of land that legacy trackers cannot use. The company said its system also delivers twice the energy per acre, resulting in smaller project footprints and a lower profile on the landscape.

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