New Delhi, April 4 -- Aerem Solutions Pvt Ltd, which provides financing for solar projects and other services including designing and installation, said Friday it has secured Rs 100 crore ($11.7 million) in a Series A round of funding.

The Mumbai-based company said the round was led by Japan's University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners (UTEC), a $700 million deep-tech fund.

The UK's development finance institution, British International Investment (BII), Schneider Electric-backed SE Ventures, and fintech-focused early-stage venture fund Riverwalk Holdings as well as existing investors Blume Ventures and Avaana Capital also participated in this round. BII in December committed to invest $1.75 million in Aerem, a co-investment with Blume, according to a disclosure in March.

The company said it has also secured debt capital from IDFC, AU Small Finance, Axis Bank, Northern Arc, MAS Financial, and Vivriti Capital.

The latest financing round comes roughly two years after the climate-tech startup raised $5 million in pre-Series A funding round led by Avaana Capital, with participation from Blume Ventures.

The startup plans to expand its presence across India and enhance its end-to-end platform, scale its marketplace business and broaden its lending portfolio to meet growing demand, it said in a statement.

"We recognize Aerem's category leadership in distributed solar and look forward to fuelling the company's expansion by helping to establish go-to-market partnerships with our LP, Schneider Electric, and Schneider company Luminous," said Siddharth Mehta, partner at SE Ventures.

Aerem claims it has built an ecosystem of over 2,000 installation partners across 65 cities. The company said its platform has enabled more than 800 megawatts of solar capacity and financed more than 800 projects.

Aerem was founded in 2021 by Anand Jain and Vikesh Agarwal. It operates a solar-focused NBFC through NetZero Finance and SunStore, a business-to-business marketplace connecting solar equipment manufacturers, distributors, and installers.

Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from VC Circle.